JV'S KILLER POKER:
EXPECTATION

BY: John Vorhaus

The Butterfly Effect is a phenomenon known to meteorologists and other students of... well, of phenomena like the Butterfly Effect. What it says, simply, is that a butterfly batting its fragile wings in Afghanistan can, under the right atmospheric conditions, trigger a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. It's science's way of saying that anything is possible.

I use the Butterfly Effect to remind me that everything is part of everything else. Just as that butterfly in Afghanistan affects the weather in Curacao, things that happen to you far away from the poker table affect how you play and whether you win or lose. Case in point: Last week I was driving to a poker tournament in Los Angeles. It was a hot and sunny Saturday afternoon, and I left in plenty of time to enjoy the drive and still catch the first flop. No way could I possibly be late, unless I encountered some outrageous traffic, but why would there be outrageous traffic on a Saturday afternoon?

Well, there was, and it turned the freeway into a parking lot. So I got off the freeway - bailed, in the vernacular. No problem. I know a dozen different bails to the card club. No way I'm going to be late.�

Unless there happens to be a train, stuck, blocking my bail.�

To make a long, excruciating story less long and therefore less grim, I missed the first flop by two minutes. This should not have been a problem, except that a dealer had called in sick, so the alternate players' list was longer than usual. So long that I didn't get into the tournament at all.

Big deal, you say? So I missed a little tournament? So what? You know what, or anyway if you don't know I think you can guess. Having driven all that way, having weathered traffic and trains and short stoplights and stupid drivers, I was in no mood to turn around and drive back home. Even though I'd had every intention of playing in the tournament only, I soon found myself with a rack of chips and a seat in a live game.

And not even the game I wanted! The game I wanted (the game filled with known fish and weakies, at a limit I feel comfortable playing) was booked solid, with a long list of eager waiters. So I settled instead for not the game I wanted, just because I felt I was owed somehow. I had had my expectation defeated, damn it, and the first available patron was by golly gonna pay!

Guess who the first available patron turned out to be.

Right. Me.

I have to be honest with myself (you have to be honest with yourself): I was steaming before I ever sat down. I'd had the expectation of playing in a tournament, and the explosive defeat of that expectation put me on tilt. Is it any wonder I got creamed? Creamed by the Butterfly Effect.

Think about it. We go to the club with the best of intentions. We're only going to play our game at our stakes. But then something small and unforeseen happens - that Butterfly Effect - and the option we want is no longer available. Maybe the game just broke. Maybe a dealer went home sick. Maybe the new shift boss thinks your favorite game is loony-tunes and won't spread it anymore. Maybe they're filming a stupid TV commercial outside the club and you get shut out of a tournament or a ring game in the time it takes you to detour around the key grip.

Whatever.

Anything can happen. And if you don't expect it to happen, if you don't plan for it, it can put you on tilt. After that... well, you know. We crash, we burn, we drive home with regret.

Discipline is a great thing. But discipline means more than just folding bad hands. Discipline seeps into every part of a winning player's game. Its lack in any aspect of play can put the best player into a tailspin. And discipline happens - has to happen - before we even sit down to play.

Think about this next time you're driving to your favorite pokering hole. Somewhere ahead of you in the immediate future is something you haven't planned for. Maybe you'll have to park far away from the entrance. Maybe a waiter will spill hot coffee on you. Maybe some flipperbrain will chase you to the river with 2-3 offsuit and get there with the world's lamest two-out draw. To twist a popular phrase (for the sake of sensitive readers) spit happens. And it will happen to you. The only important question is: What happens back?

You can't control when things go wrong. You can only control how you react to the wrong things strewn across your path. Will you roll with the punches, using your flexibility, consciousness and awareness to keep from making a bad situation worse? Or will you pull out the first available metaphorical firearm and, in your dudgeon, shoot yourself in the foot? The choice, as they say, is yours.

Look, I don't hold my mistakes against me. I've made them before, and lord knows I'll make them again. If I had it to do over again, I'd have left my house ten minutes sooner, or turned around and driven home as soon as it became clear that I wasn't going to be able to play my game on my terms. No matter. As they say at Chernobyl, that's fuel under the reactor now.

But if I don't learn from my mistakes, then I'm at the continued mercy of the Butterfly Effect. So I make every effort to take a note on the experience, and the next time I'm whacked upside the head by the explosive defeat of my expectations, I hope and trust that I'll be strong enough, disciplined enough, to walk away unscathed.

How about you? Do you learn from your mistakes? Or does every little Caribbean storm take you by surprise? The worst ones start in Afghanistan, you know. And we never see them coming at all.

(John Vorhaus is author of the KILLER POKER series and News Ambassador for UltimateBet.com.)