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DaRk AnGel : Why Home : April 2006 : HURRY UP- Dammit!

HURRY UP- Dammit!

I have been playing online poker for a month or so now. I have to be careful because the time slips past me while I do. I struggle to balance the yard, birds, house, MySpace and poker all in my life. I am lucky that there are so many things in my world that I get up looking forward to doing.

Poker started as fun. Then I thought, hey I was great at cards in the seventies, maybe I can make some money at this. I played a few nights with play money, watched every event I could on TV and then decided I was going to venture 100.00 of real money. If I could make that into 500 I would then stop and use that as money to play on in the future.

Tournaments can be entered for as little as a dollar. And it really is a road to addiction. And with my personality I have to be wary. I have been down that road before.

Anyhow I love the power of pushing "all in". This means you bet everything you have on your hand against the other players. I am mesmerized when the pros do it on TV. Poker is some skill, some instinct, and a lot of luck. Or so I thought.

I logged on. Joined a $5-10 no limit room, and was wiped out in less than a minute. WOW this was not how it went with the play money.

Humbly I quit and logged off.

The fact is, I did not do my homework. But that is not what beat me then, and still beats me now.

First is the homework. Poker is a lot about odds and percentages; a lot of math. For example, if there are three community cards and five players each with two cards, well there are thirteen cards gone. If you have a pair of 2's and are hoping for a third in the next two cards, what are the chances of getting one in the remaining 39 cards in two attempts. This is just one example of the many odds and intricacies that need to be taken into account and are by professional players. So some of being a good player is studying. I had not.

What I also do not have is an excuse. I have the books, I have the info from the internet, but something inside of me erroneously tells me that I do not really need that. So I go online, and usually hit a couple good hands, and still lose most. I have not done the groundwork to be a serious player.

But what really defeats me, is something else in me. The biggest flaw I have is lack of patience. When I want something - I WANT IT NOW. Rarely do I sit back and wait. When I wanted a new computer, my old one was failing, so I bought a laptop. With the laptop as a backup I should have been set. But no.. I then decided that I wanted a NEW DESKTOP with the best and latest technology. Did I wait. Nope, online and ordered it. And my credit cards suffer. As do the simple things that I really want to do in life, travel, camp…

Patience is never been one of my traits. My doctor was late yesterday. I was steaming by the time I saw him. If the task is slow and tedious I will rush through it succeeding but the result is something I am not really proud of. Last year when I resumed gardening I tried to landscape my whole acre in a year. With the drought little survived. Added to that I have basically red clay. I kind of stuck the hundreds of dollars of flowers in there and hoped.

This year I am working on a major section at a time, and doing it right, and leaving the remainder of the tasks for years to come. Now when I plant, I dig deep and large around. Fertilizer, manure and moss are added. The plants I planted this year are doing well.

With poker, most of why I cannot sustain a winning streak is due to my lack of patience. I have a chart in front of me that tells me plainly, that if my dealt cards are not a pair or a Ace-Eight or above that I have little chance of winning. Everyday I sit out and say, ok today I will play by the chart. And each day, I start and within a half a dozen hands am playing almost every hand. Even with a deuce-trey and ten people playing, I will put money in the pot. I know I set myself up to lose..

Part of this is boredom. I cannot stand boredom. I cannot stand wasting time. So after a couple of hands of watching - I wanna play. I do not want to just sit there and wait for what a pro does to be dealt him. And the results for the most part are that I lose my butt every day.

Patience is one thing that I have continually worked on. Now I am faced with the choice. Do I want to play poker online for fun? Or do I want to be good at something again, as I was in my career? In my career I crammed for two years to start my journey outside of college. I was tenacious and read anything and everything I could on my profession. I was so very patiently impatient. But I did the work. For those two years career was all I was focused on. No dating, no social life, no sex - well at least not with another person present.

I would like to have a source of extra income. Poker is a way I see that I can do this. But I need to do the work. Study and practice and memorize calculations. Now I am not blind. I know that I will win some and I will lose some. The point is being trained and equipped the best one can to make sure that the winnings always are more than the losses. Luck plays a part in it as well. Knowing the odds, percentages, keeping track of the cards played and remaining, and studying the habits of your opponents, is a way to try to ensure one has all advantages that they can have.

Sometimes I wonder if my subconscious fears immediate death? My closest friend in highschool has died 5 years ago. Much younger than I am now and he was much healthier. I wonder if I want everything now because I worry I may not be here tomorrow. So many die younger, healthier, and so very quickly. Why am I so obsessed with time?

Or is it laziness?

Time to make a decision. Either I do the work, or play for fun. Until then play money is all I will dare to venture, that and a little time each day.

Poker makes me face my impatience every time I play. Too bad I am a slow learner in that respect. Or is it simply hard headedness? Impatience has nagged me all of my life. The $100 dollars I lost is minor in the costs I have paid due to it.

I pride myself on knowing myself better than most. I can usually tell where things stem from that I do, and why I act that way. I can trace much back to childhood. But impatience is one I have not yet been able to find the root of.

Damn I wish this rain would stop. I have so much to do in the yard. Hell a little water will not hurt me.. See you next blog.. If a tree does not fall on me or lightening doesn't strike.

I could wait… But time is a passing… I should wait…

I am so driven by the need to do…

Anything but nothing…