Poker News

John Carlisle

In 2004, Hurricane Ivan swept up the east coast. It’s remnants dumped several inches of rain onto my area in a couple of hours worth of time. I woke up the next morning to find about three feet of nasty, brown floodwater pooled in my basement. It was a truly bad beat. I lost my furnace, washer and dryer, sofa, television, microwave,and even some poker supplies! It swallowed several days worth of time as my wife and I cleaned up the complete mess, and it cost several thousand dollars to replace the ruined items. A few weeks ago, a hurricane named Dennis was ripping up Cuba and was forecasted to crash into the US. With the fresh memory of the water claiming my basement floor just a year earlier, I quickly jumped into action. I worked tirelessly to move my expensive items to “higher ground.” I purchased and set-up two separate sump pumps. I even moved all of my poker stuff to the top floor, just in case.

When hurricane/tropical storm Dennis never materialized in my area, my basement stayed completely dry. I should have been ecstatic that my home had gone unscathed. Oddly, though, I was struggling with a misplaced sense of disappointment. A part of me actually wanted the tropical storm to make a direct hit. I was somehow ready for the challenge. I was ready for a fight. Man versus nature, I suppose. It was as if I was expecting the worst, but had gotten the best and didn’t like it! I didn’t now how to emotionally handle the whole situation.

I’m guessing that some of you reading this think that my mentality is completely off the mark. Maybe you just can’t relate. But I’m willing to bet that many serious poker players can completelyunderstand where I am coming from. Most of us are fueled by a deep competitive drive. Perhaps I’ve taken it a bit too far as I salivate at the prospect of going to war with a natural disaster. But at the root of personal psychology, this is the same drive that keeps me sharp and determined at the table. For many of us, poker is a personal battle. We enjoy the psychological challenge of poker as much as (or more than) the money that we earn. We play to be our best. We play to beat our opposition. We play to get another chance to face the hurricane that once took us by surprise.

Do you still have that competitive fire for the game of poker? Is that hunger still boiling in your stomach? Are you always ready to face the next challenge? Poker is the ultimate game of psychology. With that, the emotions and determination within you will certainly affect the outcome of the game. It is imperative that you find a way to harness the power of the hurricane within you — energy, determination, desire, focus. Funneling and controlling that internal hurricane can be a tough chore, but is a necessary step towards greatness. I need to stop typing this article, now. I have to check the Weather Channel for when the next bid storm is to hit. I’ve gotten myself pumped-up to fight, now. You can do it.

Now go make it happen.

Filed under: Poker News