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This article originally appeared in the January2008 edition of the Two Plus Two Publishing Internet Magazine.

Imagine yourself driving in traffic on a beautiful, sunny afternoon. You have the windows down and you are enjoying one of your favorite songs on the stereo. Life is good.

Then some worthless piece of existence cuts you off. Immediately, you feel like your head is going to explode. You lay on the horn for a few seconds and start to question why this person was ever born to begin with. Your upset-o-meter is indeed pegging.

Why are you so upset?

Well, the most logical reason to be upset is because he has endangered you needlessly, but I don’t believe that is the real reason why most of us get upset when something like this happens. I know it’s the not reason that I get upset! Most of us get upset because this person hurt our ego or because we feel that this person is slowing us down. Ask yourself why you feel this. Does this person’s act of cutting you off really have anything to do with your ego? It shouldn’t. You are telling yourself that since this person cut you off, you must be a weak person. Strong people don’t get cut off. Does this sound rational? (more…)

I have mixed feelings about people qualifying their poker advice. There are two sides to the coin. Sometimes you see people give out advice without any qualification and the advice given is not applicable except for in certain games. Other times, players discredit advice that is correct a large percentage of time by finding the theoretical flaw in it. Which philosophy is more correct and why am I making a big deal about this?

In all forms of poker there are many variables that need to be considered. (more…)

I have a new article, “Understand Yourself”, that has just been published in the January issue of the 2+2 internet magazine. Stop by and check out it!

Feel free to add any comments about the article in the comment sections of this blog entry.

P.S.

For those wondering, this little project is why I haven’t had as many new posts recently.

At this point I play poker for a hobby.  However, playing for a living is something that has always interest me.  From what I can tell, it is hard to get a real thorough response on what it is like playing poker for a living because it is so much different from most professions.

I came across this article today and I felt that it is interesting.  Matt explains how playing poker professionally can make a person feel, and he does it in a way that everybody should be able to relate to.

I have decided to continue my psychology thang I am on. They say you write about things you are interested in and as of right poker psychology is my main squeeze. I would like to get some hands up soon so that maybe we can get some strategy discussion on here.

I find that once a poker player reaches a certain stage that his biggest limiting factor is himself. Pretty much all players can get a good general grip on strategy such that they will be able to beat games that aren’t too tough. At a certain point a player must look inward to find new leaks. I have discussed this somewhat in my Ask Why blog.

I believe two of the most common flaws I see around the forums are the “I am not weak-tight” flaw and the “I watch too much TV” flaw. These two flaws are closely related to each other and often have the same symptoms. Read more about these flaws