Drowning in Rhythm

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This is what stares back at me every weekday.
It's hard to tell who's playing the Sadist at times.
I can dance with them however I please.
But this it isn't the true partner I have in mind.

My true partner moves in multiples of 4.
To remove me from the reality of the existence my actions have conspired to surround me in.
I feel compelled to lose myself in the experience of what is happening inside my head.
Sometimes for only minutes at a time, sometimes for hours on end.

1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4

Experimentation instead of regimentation is the norm.
My head starts moving with the flow, almost against my will.
But my will is the DJ's will.
Employer isn't a word in this world.

I know that you know that I know that you know that I know

It all started with a raise to 16k from the cut off @ 4k/8k/1ka with Q8o.

Of the 3 in front of me I know I already have a dynamic with the solid aggro player on the button who had already 3bet called off 77 earlier vs my 4 bet shove. In poetic fashion my 4 bet shove contained 44 and I hit the 2 across on the 4th card. Villian was not happy and instantly high carded for dealer. Understandable. The small blind is terrible so I'm hoping to get heads up with him as I will destroy him postflop. The Big Blind knows the good reg to my right, so is probably at least competent. But I have position if I can get through the button

I'm starting to gather some momentum in this tournament and want to take full control of this table with the bubble fast approaching so I'm trying to put the foot down and hoover up chips. I have around 400k with around 35 players left down from 389. And then it happens.

From a 500k stack the button makes it 38k.

A lot of players hate playing poker where they are put in spots, preferring just to wait for big pairs or to make big hands instead of grasping the game for what it is; a pure form of mental warfare. As some one who gets off on mental warfare his raise heightens my senses straight away.

"Is he playing back at me for opening what is obviously a wide range?"
"Whats his 3 bet range here?"
"I've already seen him 3 bet 77 so his value range is wider that I thought initially, so he probably can't continue vs a 4 bet unless hes willing to put in his stack"
"What do I do if he flats the 4bet? He's already 4 bet shoved AA so probably won't flat here to induce action."

For a few months I totally tamed my game down, played more solid, stopped playing back vs 3bets with air and trying to just crush the fish. Given we were the 2 biggest stacks on the table I'm on the fence about how to continue. Now I know it looks like I'm trying to steal the blinds considering I've opened the past 3 times it's folded to me. I know what it looks like. The dealer miscounts his raise and he sternly says

"No it's 20k more"

I already know what to do.

I grab 3 orange chips and make it 93k total to go.

Now I could click it back and get into something of a leveling war, but this raise was more than just a 4 bet. This raise was to let not only him know I mean business, it means I won't be 3 bet at will and if you want these chips you better be able to put your chips on the line when you raise me. This is my table. This is MY TOURNAMENT. This raise was a metaphor for a giant FU and everyone else at this table was going to understand this. I was in the fuckin zone and wanted to crush this table so hard that luck was going to play little part in me getting every chip in the room. My raise leverages most of his stack because he can't put in half of my effective stack and fold. I'm already confident I've won this hand and with it some table respect.

But just as well as I read my opponent he made the final read. He asks how much I have, states a number I can't mind and instead of just doing nothing I motion my hand upwards. I didn't even know how much I had left, I just wanted my stack to contain more girth than my words could backup at this point. A live tell if ever there was one. Maybe he picked up on it, maybe he just knew I was full of shit as much as I knew he was playing poker just as much as me here.

"All in"

Sigh.

I insta muck as tanking here is ridiculous. We should never be 4 betting for value to fold here, so our range has already been polarised, and villian already knows this. Everyone knows you're at it when you eventually fold anyway and you'll not save any face.

Villian tables 67suited. I let out a murmur of a laugh, say nice hand whilst retreating back to the intellectual war room that contains the thoughts within my head to repair whats left of my soul.

Change is illusion / Only the dynamics differ

A year changes a lot about a person, his or her perception of the world around them and taking the harsh lessons life can throw at you and converting it into experience; the only silver lining available to the individual in times of despair it seems. Poker changes by the week as people change by the day, or at least the illusion of change. Poker is always the same as people are always the same. Only the dynamics differ as time goes on. How you adjust is what decides the consequences in the long run.

For all the logic and rationality my words exhibit my thought process map is usually intuitive and then I try and match it to the facts presented to me. Fair to say I'm a strange creature and it's usually exhibited in the first draft of anything I type/write/say before I filter it. My reaction to women I get on with is similar at times.I base all of my decisions on logic and reason yet the woman I fall for just spin my head at will and descend my rational thoughts into something that would maybe seem coherent in a Monty Python sketch. And it's all I can think about, day and night.

I've only ever felt "in love" twice in my life. On a personal level I fell for someone who I thought had potential to be something of a soul mate or as close to it as a I thought possible over the past 6 months. The reality is she was more fucked up than I thought possible and our deepest, happiest connections came via highly emotional scenes and high amounts of external party extras. Bipolar/Borderline Personality Disorder is real as real can be and anyone should think long and hard about getting into any sort of friendship/relationship with someone who has either of these. It's easy to place the strain of either a friendship/relationship on the person with the mental disorder, but we should always look at our own actions to see how we can improve instead of only blaming external factors we have no control over. The misconception is these people are capable of thinking and feeling exactly the same as you and I. It couldn't be further from the truth and it takes a strong headed individual to bend their head around this.

After one of the best weekends of my life was I prepared to continue to be there for someone with these problems when I had lost my own sense of independence after having to move out of my own place, getting smashed every weekend to try and feel sort sort of happiness that is not possible in the confines of a box house that clearly couldn't accommodate me?

No

Naturally I was partially to blame for the breakdown of what we had. For a small period of time I felt like I was going through a slight depression. Definitely not as bad as I know some friends have had, but all the same I felt like I was to blame for the fuck up of something that could have been great. It took finally ending our whole friendship (phone/skype/facebook the lot) to get the weight off my shoulders and realise I wasn't the main reason for it falling apart.

Undoubtedly my biggest life leak is the women I fall for in my short time on this planet. All have been different shades of eccentric, crazy or mad, but these are the only people I become attracted to because it's the only people I can connect with on a certain level. I can quite easily spot an attractive woman, but the physical attraction requires the mental connection for me. I'm undoubtedly a red blooded male but that sense of absolute mental connection is that next level for me.

Regret any of it? Do I fuck. I had 6 of the best and most interesting months of my life and feel better equipped mentally moving forward. Onto the next nutcase....

Fuckin Fish

"But you are the pre flop aggressor Keenan. Keep betting and they have to fold"

Yeah right. The fundamental mistake of giving micro stakes villains credit for any sort of logical thought process made me more of a fuckin retard than them. At this stage I was down $2k lifetime playing online tournys on Stars over 3 years. It was starting to dawn on me that I had to realise I was the fuckin fish or spend several more years falling behind the curve and never giving myself a proper crack at getting any good. I had to sort out my ego, sort out my mentality and sort out the pish graph I had to look at every time I dared to search myself on sharkscope.

I came up with the idea of a 3 way deal between a friend (Rob) to stake me for micro/low mtt's and for CJ (swansfc_cj) to coach me on the side. I knew both through the PES scene when it was a full blown addicition for many.

For those of you who know who Rob is, will also know he likes to work hard and play even harder. His general poker these days consisted of shot taking big online events, degenning 5/10 hu plo, wrapping a jumper round his head blind drunk playing 5/10 at the Wynn casino, and terrorising his local 1/2 game, because he can buy in 300bb deep and not even have to scratch his arse at the thought.

CJ on the other hand has never worked a full time job. He went straight out of school and started playing poker at the local casinos in small stake tournaments and transitioned to playing micro mtt's on Pokerstars. Fast forward to present and he was busy ballin it up at mid stakes mtt's, playing scoops wcoops and any other woopdey woop baller tournament series that was going. and never having to give a fuck about getting up at 7 in the morning like the rest of "us"

I thought the odds of both of them agreeing would be around 20%, akin to Kings beating Aces and that only happens in the fuckin movies, or you happen to be Jason Mercier, Elky or Durrrr spiking them 2 outers on the turn like its no big deal to run so far ahead of expectation you wonder how anyone loses at such an easy game.

Naturally because I'm a lovable Scottish cunt both agreed to take me on. Out of belief, sorrow or sympathy I really didn't give a fuck at the time. I had a baller willing to back me and an up and comer in the online tourny scene willing to rip me for 3betting 94suited out the small blind.

Poker is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will

Ricky's Facebook status this morning reads

"Poker is...."

Those of us who invest much of our lives into this godforsaken game probably haven't taken too much time to think of what Poker is.

We load up clients and reg from lunchtime to night time, spending hour after hour trying to collect as many chips as possible betting, raising, folding, calling, bluffing, flushing, jamming, overbetting, floating, sucking out and trying to get people to put their chips in drawing dead with no miracle cards left in the deck.

We use every weapon available to us in order to make the best decisions possible to try and defeat every last opponent who decides to pit his skillset, cards and position against us.

The Prussian solidier and miltary theorist Carl von Clausewitz wrote in the 1832 treatise 'On War'

"War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will."

So what is Poker to me?

Poker is war