I ultimately decided that Poker would become my game of choice, and like most things that exist in this vast world John Hodgman gladly had something to say about it. And it was something that you couldn’t just read in a book, or rather any other book, or rather any of the poker books on the stand next to my recently acquired bidet -- and in my opinion, I don’t know how people have lived without one in current times.
I knew a fair amount about poker already like hands, betting, positioning, tells, etc. but there was just something that I could never quite grasp. Hodgman mentioned it in his book and it is essentially cultivating your poker identity. Let me explain, poker isn’t just a game of statistics and luck there is also a fair amount of psychology involved in the game. When a player sits down to a table they’re going to immediate psychological impact on the game whether they know it or the people they are playing with know it. According to Hodgman it’s best to cultivate a presence to mask your “tells”.
While playing sometimes your mindsets can sometimes be manifested into a “tell”, and you won’t even know that you’re doing it because they are a direct manifestation from your subconscious. Overtime, a poker player can catch on to a person’s tell and use it against them, the better a poker player is the faster he can see your tell, and in turn take more of your precious money.
Hodgman mentions the greatest players and how they’ve cultivated their own presence and it was something they created because it could be controlled as though an actor would make a character his own in a movie. The more drastic or crazy their character, the more unpredictable their game was and thus making them harder to “read”, or pick up their tells. Now we can’t all be Mike “the Mad Genius of Poker” Caro or Timmy “The Drooling Mastermind” McGoonish, an identity in this case is something that you have to make your own.
I decided to take Hodgman’s advice and cultivate my own, in a long and arduous process of discovering, developing, and testing my own identity. It wasn’t actually as grueling as I’m making it out to be, because this identity was something that was already within me, since I was a child. A ninja, you read that right for a ninja embodies everything and more necessary to be a great poker player. The intelligence to know when to bet, the discipline to know when to fold, a mask to hide your facial queues. But of course, we can’t forget the most important weapon in a ninja’s arsenal, LITERALLY their massive arsenal of weapons which they use to intimidate their opponents into a swift and bloody submission, which is more commonly known in poker as folding.
After learning the way of the ninja, as well as the poker player, it was time to put my newly found skill set to the test. And what better way to do that then a session so I was off to SIn City, where what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Unfortunately, the way of the ninja is actually pretty costly and I didn’t have enough for flight and room accommodations. So instead I was off to visit my next best option in the gambling world “Creepy Uncle Jack” or “Sloppy Aunt Rita” or in the non-gambling world Atlantic City. It’s known by those names because the events that perspire there hauntingly stay with for the rest of your life and mold you as a person for better or worse, but mostly worse because Atlantic City is not a pleasant place to be.
So with a dollar, a dream, and a ninja suit I was ready to take this city for what it was worth, which isn’t a lot (Note: I had more than a dollar on my persons, because trying to win at poker with dollar is almost impossible). Now I don’t want to bore you with the details and poker slang, but in summation my trip was of great success. I wasn’t giving people an inch, they couldn’t see any tells because of my mask and flashing my sword as an intimidation tactic certainly kept them from calling any bluffs. I swiftly took down all of my opponents one by one. I was untouchable because everyone knows you don’t touch a ninja unless you want a finger cut off. I honored myself and my family and thank goodness, because if I hadn’t done as well as I did I would have had to pay the consequences, possibly in the form of a finger or toe.
I’m not trying to tell everyone that they should take a bus down to Atlantic City dressed up as a ninja, because that is my thing and the point of this exercise is to come up with YOUR OWN identity. Also nothing good could possibly come of people dressed as ninjas they would all be evenly matched and tensions would erupt causing a Ninja War.
- Keep your friends close and your money closer, Good Day
