poker is like football.

[DaycareInferno]

it was a good weekend for me with my beloved wildcats knocking off texas, as well as my beloved chiefs taking down the chargers, and it got me to thinking a little bit about one big similarity between poker and football that gets overlooked a lot in the former, because it really isn't all that exciting.

in football, when you're up against an opponent that is at least somewhat competitive, you can play well for 3 quarters, fumble the ball, and bam, you lose. you can have the best skill players, the best defense, the best special teams, whatever, but if you cough the ball up, it doesn't mean [censored]. you lose.

poker is the same way. at any time, one bad decision negates several good ones, so even if you are better than your opponents, if you cough the ball up, you lose.

so, you're probably not too impressed at this point in the reading, and you're probably thinking to yourself "well, no [censored]. obviously if you make a bunch of huge mistakes, you're going to lose. thanks for wasting 5 minutes of my life, buddy." just think about it for a minute though. how many losing hands do you not post, just because they're such obvious blunders that you realise it instantly as soon as you look at them? i've got hundreds of hands like that, and i'm a pretty decent player.

in my mind, one of the least emphasized axioms in poker is that the harder a decision is, the less important it is. i'm not the first person to have said this, but think about it in terms of spending your time and energy efficiently. if you make 5 big blunders during a session, are you really focusing your energy properly by spending half an hour mulling over and stoving some marginal call you made with an overpair on a draw heavy flop? its interesting, and any learning is good learning, but i'd still have to say no.

there is an old coaching saying that i have always liked a lot. "its not what you teach. its what you emphasize." i think this is something very useful to keep in mind when it comes to unl/ssn. in my opinion, regardless of personal playstyle preference, if a player were to always make a somewhat reasonable, or even debatable decision when faced with a choice, that player would undoubtedly be a huge winner. of course, we all make huge, terrible, almost unexplainable blunders from time to time, but in my opinion, the biggest factor that separates players from each other at this level is simply the frequency of these meltdowns.

i don't want anyone to take this post the wrong way. i'm not trying to discourage anyone from working on marginal situations and tough spots. its always good to work on your critical thinking skills and to see how other peoples' opinions and experiences stack up against your own. all i'm getting at is that a guy can really save himself a lot of cash simply by focusing the brunt of his energy on not coughing up the ball. [censored] up less, and win.

the end