Monday, January 30, 2012

Poker's anomaly : The preference of tactics over strategy

Firstly, a brief definition of tactics and strategy applied to the game of Poker :

Tactics : The operational way of how each hand of Poker is played at the moment of conflict.

Strategy : The planning and execution before, during and after to set up and lead the opponents into tactical situations that favours the planner. 

Now that the above words have been defined for today's post, do note that this is not a post on how to play Poker but rather a commentary on observations of players favoring the strange situation of tactics over strategy. It is a situation that tends to rise up during a game with some but not all of the players that take Poker more seriously. This situation that arises is illogical as those players would tend to enthusiastically inform others on how much they would love to play against a player who is weak and that they are long term profit seeking individuals but in practice show actions that pit tactics over strategy. Thus losing in most cases, value in the long run. 

For example, during a raked Poker game of the author's personal experience. There was player A who called player B's pot size bet on the flop and turn to catch his flush on the river in a game of Texas Hold'em. Mathematically, A's play was wrong, as in the long run, A will be losing money. The hand being over, this is when B started to show the strange behaviour of favoring tactics over strategy. B started to focus only on how the hand is played and angrily berate very openly how bad A had played. This in the end, made A feel angry and leave the game with his profit (including B's money). In conversations later, when asked if B would want to play more with A, B said yes. The evident hypocrisy being, if one wanted to play more with a weaker player, B should have just have left A alone, continue to play 'bad' and allow the math of Poker to gain a profit over A in the long run. Instead by annoying A, A would in future not want to play at the game B plays at and in essence, B has lost value from a uneven match up where B feels he is the favorite.  

This being said, the above situation is usually not so direct and the berating is usually put in a mild manner or even sarcastically as a joke but in the end still equates to the same result of insulted individuals. Who would then prefer not to play with the berating player in the future. This is simply because, most people are not stupid and tend to know when they are being insulted. It would seem too that some berating individuals have a more skewed view of the Math of Poker, as their reaction to losing a hand they are leading percentage wise tends to feel like they really could not fathom out of the realm of nature that they could lose at all. Losing their cool/temper in this way in one's view, equivalent to being angry that the sun rose the next day, as even losing a 98% locked in to win hand is going to happen sooner or later. Their actions from an outside perspective, seeming to state that others should play like how they want them to and then perfectly, lose to them rather than for them to adjust and counter the plays styles of their opponents.

In conclusion, one feels the focus on strategy over tactics is definitely a more profitable and happy one. As if all one does in Poker would result in a more likely profit in the end, then it makes it easier to take the bad beats and plays dished out by Lady Luck and other players. For through adjustments to each opponent and the understanding that in the long run, if one's opponents puts their money in mathematically bad and wins, the money coming back anyway. Taking each lost as the opponent having paid for this unlikely win this one of a few rare times. 

Till next word...
  


Friday, January 6, 2012

Blood is thicker than water but water is more essential for life : A article on trust

Today's post would be on the issue of trust with the focus example on the phrase : "Blood is thicker than water." It will be discussed that the above phrase is not true and that trust is something that is earned through sincerity and interaction, not by association of blood or tradition of any sort. (Let the author preface first that he is not pointing out that he does not trust his own family but rather the discussion that family in itself is not a factor he bases trust on.)

Through one's miniscule 29 years on earth, on more than one occasion, the author has been told in many forms the line: "Who else could he trust over family." The argument being, connected by genes and blood, one has a less likely chance of being treated in a selfish manner by the relatives in question. One agreeing that there is logic behind such a rationale due to the invested interest of the bloodline prospering. This being said, one has also always felt and more strongly that through history, it has been proven on many occasions that blood relations is not a proven factor that has resulted in genuine altruistic help. The infighting between blood related princes from any country that has experienced a feudal system of government more than enough proof of said flaw in using family as a principle means of trust. 

To the author's own method of living, who one trusts is based on sincerity and interaction. The sincerity of the mind being all important as even if said person is not fully considered intelligent at least he has your best interest at heart. Which allows focus on the true problem at hand, as compared to if one was to implement a plan of someone one does not trust. It is like using a problem to solve another problem, you need defenses for both problems to be truly certain of the desired result. 
The second is interaction. Basically, trust being earned through consistent action that warrants or results in it. This is because for reasons unknown to oneself, another could easily have done something that you felt meant he/she is truly one to trust but in fact that person was acting in self interest. This resulting in a hole in one's mental and physical defenses that allows such a person to manipulate and use you to their own means of profit. The length of interaction being important as all selfish people are acting on direct or implied profit and sooner or later once that limit of non profit has been met, the selfish person will show their true colours.

In conclusion, in the author's life up to the date of this blog. He can say the only person that has achieved the above criteria and who he trusts over 85%/100% is only one and has a surname of Li. He was the inspiration of this blog and one feels he is truly worthy of mention for being a great friend to me. 

Till next word...

(This blog being about Logic, the author could not end such a post without stating that he believes all people are born selfish and thus a logical warning being that one should never trust another person fully at 100%. For a quick example, if you were a leader to a country and had a very trusted allied country beside yours. Most would agree that it would still be a bad idea to allow the allied country's army to enter your country without any kind of reason or defense.)