My Brain on Rec.Gambling.Poker

I'm sitting here at work. It occurred to me that I never mentioned what I actually do, yet went into a diatribe about it in my last post. Anyway, I am a dispatcher for a regional airline.

So, I'm sitting here at work. Chicago has slipped into some damn fool ground delay program because they can't handle the inbound load of airplanes. It's 20 miles and clear with a nice light breeze out of the west... Must be time for a program. This is the 27th day running that they have gone into a program. If we're pissed, I can only imagine what United and American must be feeling! Not to mention people trying to make connecting flights. This is, as we say, a Texas Sized goat rope.

Since flights are delayed an hour for no apparent reason, I find myself with a few minutes here and there to stare into space. That sucks, so I usually start thinking happy thoughts, like running through my recent titanic suckage in low limit Hold'Em. I've gone back to my usual suspects for information to correlate what my game looks like vs. what my game SHOULD look like to be a winning player, when it suddenly occurred to me...

I'm scared!

My confidence really took a hit the other day when I took a huge loss. Ever since then, I've been stumbling around like Rocky after the first real hit from Clubber Lang. I take jabs at pots and flinch when something remotely bad comes on the board. Any time I do press the issue I get smacked on the river, most of the time on draws I should have seen coming. I sit down at the table now wondering where the next loss is going to come from... This is a bad way to be, and explains why I've been losing. It also illustrates in graphic detail that your unconscious mind has a huge impact on your conscious decisions.

So, now I suppose I should do some Yoga or something before I sit down at the virtual card table... I suppose. Either that or knock back a couple of drinks and put up a nice buzz so I don't get so uptight when I initially start losing. My huge win day last week began with a $10 deficit, so I really need to just relax and take the same attitude to the poker table that I take to the craps tables; The money I sit down with is already gone.

Clearly it isn't, but that mentality helps me relax and feel comfortable pushing those bets out.

Of course, that's the conscious part.. I hope the unconscious part follows suit... I'll find out tomorrow.