Monthly Archives: February 2011

Take on a New Life – 2 of 2

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Having the new You reaching back and taking the old You by the hand and leading yourself out of the wilderness into the sunshine sounds really nice. It sounds so good it sounds almost like a fairy tale told to children. All the fairy tales in the world can not change one problem into a something else. Only the new You can make that change.

The old you was trapped in a life that no one, not even the old you wanted to live. It consisted of problems, despair and want. It was a life lived on a wasteland with no way out and no hope of making it better.

The New You reaching back and taking the Old You by the hand is going to change all that. The New You understands that life is made of choices and possibilities. The New You knows that making the same old choices does not create any new possibilities. The New You knows there are other ways to manage life, other choices to be made, and other ways to solve problems and make situations better.

The New You is open to fresh new choices and other possibilities. After all, looking around with new eyes it is possible to see that other people have problems in their lives too, but they manage their problems differently. The New You sees that there are other choices to be made, and the New You wants to explore those choices, and see what changes they make in the life of the Old You.

The New You knows that all the changes and fixes to bring the Old You out of your old life have always been there, the Old You was too busy doing everything the same way and expecting things to change. The New You knows that changing the way problems are handled will bring about new choices, and new choices bring about new opportunity.

The New You watches to see how others successfully manage the same problems the Old You can not manage. The New You knows they do not have all the answers, so copying the way other people manage life problems the Old You is struggling with will make those problems go away eventually.

The New You is eager to try new things, and see the world in a new way. The New You is going to be successful, because the New You has already done the hardest part of making life better for the Old You. The New You is taking their best friend by the hand and leading them into a new world the Old You never stopped long enough to look at.

The New You is not afraid of taking a risk, working towards a goal, and knowing that a quick fix is impossible. The New You is going to put in the time and work to make a better world for the Old You. The New You wants to lead you to a better life. All the Old You has to do is reach out and accept their hand.

The New You knows how to be a leader, how to be manager, how to plan for the future, and how to be your best friend. The New You wants a better life for the Old You. Are you willing to take the hand the New You is offering and start living a new life? The hardest part of taking the hand of the New You is accepting what you are doing is not working, and letting the New You show you what is possible for your life.

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Take On a New Life – 1 of 2

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I came across an interesting idea a few weeks ago I wanted to share as a possibility for someone to use in their own life. The idea is too good to be left alone, to die a lingering death in a long forgotten post.

We all have times when we feel our life is not all it should be. Maybe the forces opposing us have joined together and are exerting themselves against us as one unit rather than a number of individual smaller problems we have been ignoring.

Maybe life has been unpleasant for so long we have forgotten what normal life is like. Waking up every day to the same problems and no solutions, with no end in sight can be a pretty demoralizing existence. After some time, the thought of living a life of pain becomes so much it hardly seems worth the effort.

After a time people start to react to their environment. For some, their way of dealing with their problems is hard to detect. Way down inside they have come to terms with the idea that this is the best it is going to get and they blunt themselves to the future in a fugue of apathy.

Others escape into what starts out as a great way to escape, usually some form of reality altering brought about in the form of an ingested substance. For a short period all their troubles seem to disappear. Then they realize they have compounded their problems by adding another big problem to their life.

A small few decide their life in the state it is, is not worth living. Unfortunately, they are so overwhelmed they can imagine no other alternative than throwing in the imaginary towel, with the thought that whatever happens can not be any worse than what they are going trough at the moment.

The idea I read about was another form of leaving your problems behind. Instead of opting out, and ending it all, or practicing substance abuse, how about realizing that life is really all in the perception?

If your life stinks, quit living that way! Decide that from this moment on, your problems are all behind you. From this moment on you are trading in your old life for a new one. No longer will the pressures of your old life keep you down and wear you out. From this moment forward you are going to start living the life you want to live!

Sounds really good to this point this starting a new life. Just walk away and start living the life you want to live. The problem in this simplistic thought is there is no place you can walk to in leaving your old life behind. So what to do to start living a new and improved life? How does one go from the depths of despair to the upper side and enjoy the good life?

The answer is not really as difficult as it may seem. Start living someone else’s life! Quit living in the same downward spiral pattern of failure that leads to the bottom, and start living life as someone with a future lives their life.

Start living life as a new person, who inherited for the short term someone else’s problems. It really is not that difficult. All it takes is a little imagination, and a little willingness to be different.

Wake up the next day and know that all those problems that were dragging you down are now someone else’s problems. You no longer have those problems in your life. You have agreed to help out a struggling friend by taking on their problems and working towards a solution for them so they can get on with their real life.

All the unsuccessful behaviors they have, you do not. Those behaviors belong to another, not to you. You have agreed to help them because they need help and no one else is willing to lend a hand.

Start working on a new way of living. Look at each new day as a day of new possibility and not a day of same old. Reach out and give the old you a hand, and help them start living the life they want to live instead the life they are living.

It will not happen in one day, one week, or in one month. Reaching your hand back to your old self to find a new and better life is better than letting your old self keep you from enjoying a life lived the way life should be lived. Turn around, reach back and take the hand of the old you, and start leading the old you into a new life.

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Holdem Bankroll For the New Player

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One of the problems for serious Holdem players who have limited playing experience grapple with is knowing how much of a session bank roll is going to be needed to sit down at a particular table. That is followed by how big of a total bank roll is needed. The frustration of being a newer player is limited experience of bankroll size. Watching players at the  table is all they really have to judge how many big bets may be needed per session.

Some players peel off bills like they grow on trees. Others leave when they have lost their minimum buy-in. When I first started out, I used the wag system. I am playing $1 – 5 Stud, so sixty dollars is more than enough to sit down at the table with. After all the initial buy-in is only $20.00, so if I have three times the buy-in that should be plenty of money.

As Stud started sliding to the wayside and Holdem was gaining ground, I started to understand the initial buy-in didn’t mean very much. The low buy-in was to make it possible for someone curious to sit down, risk the minimum dollar amount and have the pleasure of being able to say they sat down at a poker table, and played poker!

As I was more lucky than I was skilled, I slowly started growing my bankroll. I also started to notice that sometimes my $60.00 was more than enough and other times, I was on my home after running out of money early in the session. On those trips home, without any real skill at making a bankroll size, I decided maybe $80.00 would be enough to cover those times when $60.00 was not enough.

Eventually, I realized that there were times in Holdem when $80.00 was barely enough to survive a few hands, let alone have any chance at winning a hand and entering the green side of the money number line. I was still making a profit over the month, so I decided to boost my session bankroll to an even $100.00. After all, Benjamin’s sure feel good when you pull one out of your wallet, and hand it over the to the cashier for chips, knowing that they are only holding it for you, and you will be back for plus the interest received when you are done playing for the day.

I moved up to $4 – 8 Holdem around that time from a spread limit game. Holdem was indeed good for my bankroll, and my play was improving too. Unfortunately other players were improving and their level of aggression was going up too. My session money doubled to two dimes, and after that three dimes. I thought $300.00 was sufficient for any game I might encounter. Until the night I sat down and the table was unusually aggressive. By the end of the first button rotation I was pulling out my third and final Benjamin out of my wallet and asking for chips.

So how much does a session of poker really cost? The Floor (Poker Room Manager) where I play suggests ten times the minimum buy in. Some players suggest ten to fifteen times one big bet. Others look in their wallet, and decide from there.

The truth of the matter is there are no hard and fast rules to how big your session bankroll should be. There are a number of deciding factors though. In no particular order: Your comfort zone, table dynamics, skill level, time of day, day of the week, total size of your bankroll, playing style.

Two hard and fast rules are do not play with more than you can comfortably afford to lose, and never play higher than you can afford. What you can afford is money you can throw into the trash can and not think about it again.

If you are playing Low Limit Holdem casually, whatever you show up with at the table that you can lose without harming the rest of your life is the correct bankroll. For many starting players, they make a decision between a Friday Night Holdem game or partying with friends.

For more serious players, as your bankroll grows, your experience should be growing too, and you know what table types you are comfortable with. As long as you stay in the parameters of the types of tables you are comfortable with, you know what you need for a bankroll at the limit you play. If you continue to grow your bankroll, protection of your bankroll is as important as session money. By the time that happens, you will have a pretty good poker knowledge base, and you will be accustomed to managing your bankroll and your session money.

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Holdem’s Return

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I have not written anything about Holdem lately so I thought a post was overdue. Funny thing about the state of the economy. If you ever want to know the financial condition of your neighbors, go to a casino. Before the recession started there was a general mix of slot machines from penny to five dollar and higher slots with players waiting to get on them on a Friday night. Table games were usually full of players. Holdem tables had good games with wait lists most evenings. Life was good!

As money tightened, Casinos moved out many of the quarter and higher slot machines and replaced them with penny machines. Table games enjoyed less business. Holdem games get more serious at lower levels. What was a fun night out, was becoming an expense that many could not afford. The ATM machine could not pay out the way it used to in the previous months for players, and reloading to keep playing was no longer an option for many players.

Using Casinos as a reference, the economy is making a comeback. Not exactly a roaring comeback, but a comeback all the same. The Holdem tables are evolving too. Players are scrappier and games are getting better again. Tables are becoming looser, and a little more money is being thrown around. Tempers are less likely to erupt when a player on the ropes loses a hand, well played or not.

The downside for the Holdem is players are better skilled than players of the last beginning Holdem boom. Players no longer sit down with the fuzzy idea of hand rankings, and how to play a hand well. Access to information on Holdem is easy find on the net, bookstore and local library. Players are just plain better and more skilled when they sit down at a table.

Quite some time ago, I read a poker article about staying on top of the game. The article talked about how any poker game evolves. Players use different strategies, levels of aggressiveness fluctuate along with the times. Being a winning player five years ago, means you will be barely breaking even on a good day in the present.

One point overlooked, is no matter how much things change, some things remain the same. There are always the same number of cards in the deck available to be dealt to each player each hand. Everything else may change, but  basic poker concepts remain the same. The odds of having a pair are the same as ten years ago, or ten years in the future.

If you are a seasoned card player, and you are close to break even on a good night, maybe it is time to revamp your game? Playing the same way you played last year or the year before may not be the best way to play at your table today. Five years ago it would not be unusual to see players sit for hours and only play big hands.

Tight players never won big, but they never lost much either. Those same players were ran over without a thought. If there are any of tight players left, they only play when socializing is more important than winning.

Although an American paranoia, if you want to play winning Holdem you have to change. Even if changing means a loss. Losing is all relative. If you are losing and reloading without a second thought, good for you. I hope you are having lots of fun while you play!

If you are losing and understanding why you are losing, and making adjustments, you are on the right track. Quality poker lessons are not free. Whether you learn them at the table, buy books, or buy someone’s time and talent to teach you, the cost has to be looked at as an investment, not a loss.

The end goal of any Holdem player is to enjoy the game while they play. Playing for money is not the way to happiness. If you are going to spend your time and risk your money, it should be on something you enjoy doing. If you can not enjoy Holdem for what it is, you are punishing yourself, and wasting your money.

If you put enough thought in your game, eventually you will arrive at a point where you are both winning and having a lot of fun. That is the true nature of what Holdem is all about. The only caveat is once you think you have arrived, you need to remember it is only temporary.

Don’t stop paying attention and keep tweaking your game. If you stop, you will join the Rocks of old who can only think about when they used to play.  The economy is improving, and the games are getting good. They are also evolving. Pay attention while you sit there enjoying yourself, thinking about your seat at the WSOP.

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Promoting Bad Behavior

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There is always a lot of information available in Personal Development on how to improve yourself by changing your behaviors. Many sources emphasize changing what are construed as negative social behaviors for what are thought to be more acceptable behavior. I really do not think this behavior modification is possible from a deep level perspective.

Behaviors which some see as negative, anti-social, career limiting, whatever one chooses to call them, are behaviors which work for the individual at some level. These behaviors are tried and true, modified and tuned through the preceding years. When these behaviors are used they achieve the expected outcome. If these behaviors did not work for an individual they would have been modified out of existence.

What does one do if they are seen as, or they feel they have behaviors which hold them back from achieving their goals? Behavior substitution is the most promoted course of action. Substitute a limiting behavior for a behavior that is more accepted and helps achieve the desired result. That is what many experts say.

Take that behavior which is causing problems and replace it with a better behavior. For some people this is a healthy and positive way to fix whatever is wrong. The positive reinforcement of changed behavior should solidify and promote the use of the new behavior.

The only problem is it does not work for many people. People modify or replace one or more behaviors they feel are holding them back in some way. They adopt what they believe are more acceptable behaviors. Often just like the weight loss panacea, they find that after really trying and working on change for weeks or months, nothing changes.

Behavior based rewards are either non-existent, or not present in enough quantity to help the individual want to keep using modified or replaced behaviors. Little by little, just as lost pounds are regained, old behaviors start re-appearing.

Instead of enjoying all the benefits of everything one hoped would happen with behavior modification, the individual finds themselves back in the same rut they thought they were digging themselves out from. A  lot of work and effort and nothing really changed.

Maybe the problem is not in the behaviors themselves? Unless they are criminal or otherwise unlawful, maybe the behaviors are not the problem? After all these behaviors are part of the individuals personality and to some extent make them what they are.

Maybe the problem is using the behaviors at the wrong time, place, or manner? There are hundreds of jobs in multiple career fields where people use behaviors which do not work well in general social settings, and they use them successfully! Instead of trying to become someone else, be creative and look for opportunities, both social and career oriented where bad behaviors are both rewarded and encouraged.

Take those seemingly negative behaviors out, polish them up, and look for opportunities where they can be rewarded and not punished. With some tuning and polish, behaviors that many people want to change can be a fast track to success. It is more pleasant to look in the mirror and think, “This is who I am”, than look in the mirror and think, “This is me acting like someone else.”

The catch in this way of thinking, and there is always a catch, is self acceptance. Accepting who we are what we are, and knowing we are perfect for us is easier said than done. One has to throw away our families implanted ideas of who we are and look for our real self. We are what we are, and accepting ourselves is where our focus should be. We should not be focused on some ideal that we know we will never meet, or become.

Once self acceptance is second nature, it is time to find an outlet where we can be rewarded for how we are. Dismiss limiting beliefs about what we think we should be doing, for finding a lifestyle and career where we are acknowledged and rewarded for who we really are.

This takes effort and searching. The possibilities are real, they exist. Other people just like us are benefiting being themselves, doing work we can only guess at. All we need to do is be willing to break the mold we never fit in to start with, and get out there and find what we were created for and meant to do with our life.

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Gardening for Life

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One of the great myths of today is the myth of we must be doing exciting hoping others might wish they could be doing too. We want to be able to tell our friends we were doing something exotic, new and different when we see them. We sort of stumble when we are forced to tell them we have not been doing anything special. We have only been life each day as it comes to us.

Most of us, with a few rare exceptions spend most of days living life as it comes. Enjoying a few days now and then that exceed all our expectations. If we wake up tomorrow, dyed our hair, bought new clothes and did not do one single thing we did the week before, it would be an exciting new experience for a few days. After some days of doing something different every day, we would start to long for those days of doing those things we are comfortable with. Doing something different every day would start to become no different than our life was before we made the change.

Living life day to day, has a lot in common with gardening. No one expects to plant seeds today, wake up tomorrow and find flowers blooming and vegetables and fruits ripe for the picking. That is a silly thought which is impossible. Tending a garden takes time, and effort.

Life is the same way. Each day we tend our own little life garden, and over time we pick the flowers, vegetables, and fruits which we have been tending. Not everything is ripe at the same time, and not every flower in our garden blooms on the same day. If we are conscientious there will be a flower, fruit or vegetable waiting for us as we go though our days.

The daily question we should be asking ourself is, “What do I plant today, and what do I tend to today”? Every successful garden needs tending. The soil has to be of a type seeds want to live in. Too much of one thing, or not enough of another and our seeds do not grow very well.

The seeds have to be of good quality if we want healthy plants giving us good rewards. If we plant seeds without taking care of where they came from, we may end up with a garden full of weeds. If we do not take care in how we plant our seeds we have a poor garden. Plant our seeds to shallow and our plants may not take root. Plant our seeds too deep or too shallow, and we may as well not plant them at all.

As the days go by we have to make time to tend our garden. Gardens need attention, water, and weeding. Pay no attention to our seeds after they are planted and whatever we end up with is a result of luck, and not of ourselves. If we don’t water our seeds and plants, they may whither and die. If we do not tend to the weeds, our effort may be choked out by faster growing weeds.

Weeds are a special problem for our gardens. Weeds grow fast and if we let them alone they grow faster than our plants, blocking sunlight and drinking up whatever water there is, and pulling nutrients out of the soil. Before we know it our garden is mostly ruined with only a few plants surviving. The remainder of our garden is a weed patch. Full of weeds that may have been cute when they were small, but now have grown ugly with stickers, and are of no use to us.

As we make a commitment to our garden and do all those tasks that need doing, over time we become thoughtful gardeners. Those tasks which at first may have been awkward or seemingly of little importance start to show sumptuous fruit. Every day our garden provides something to smile about and be grateful for. Our life feels fuller, and those days of thinking we were not doing anything important is replaced by feelings of contentment and comfort. Without really thinking about it, we have changed our life of emptiness and wanting into a life of fullness, and bounty.

All it takes is a little careful, thoughtful gardening. Make a space, work the soil, plant the seeds, and tend your life garden. Before you realize it is happening the fruit of your labors will pay you back ten fold. You will never feel like you are coasting through your life again because you will have found the true meaning of a full life.

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