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Server Time: 3/21/2010 11:53:39 PM PACIFIC |
 Roy Cooke's column On Mulligans, Roy Cooke, 30. Oct 2003 07:16 | ||
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| This letter was sent to me and I am posting it for viewing: Roy Cooke To Roy Cooke: Your column in the 10/10/03 Card Player issue stirred up some compelling thoughts in my head. It's funny how what applies in one arena (in this case a poker table) can be applied universally, how everything and every situation is an exact replica of every other one. Poker is a microcosm of the whole Big Show, and your column immediately brought to mind a line from a Warren Zevon song titled Boom Boom Mancini, about the boxer Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini. (Just out of curiosity, how many of you out there are Zevon fans? - I'd think he'd appeal to the slightly bizarre nature that's often inherent in the poker personna). Roy, you wrote in your column how "At the poker table we often make a mistake or take a beat, and let it have a lingering effect on how we play hands in the future. Some players in this spot take a break or quit the game...In tournaments, the negative effect of lacking the mental toughness to take beats is disastrous." You go on to say, "Take pride in being mentally and emotionally tough enough to handle the game. Many bright, knowledgeable players are just not mentally and emotionally stable enough to perform consistently." How true!! From Warren's song came this: When Alexis Arguello gave Boom Boom a beating Seven weeks later he was back in the ring Some have the speed and the right combinations If you can't take the punches, it don't mean a thing. As I read your column, it and this passage seemed to run together almost as one thought pattern. Pretty cool stuff. It just sat in my mind for a day or two, and then I decided to write you. You also wrote, "Keeping yourself stable and focused gives you a huge edge over players who don't have that level of mental strength...He who 'tilts' the least has the edge." Yes, there is no substitute for perserverance. The world is filled with unrewarded genius, those who despite enormous talent do not have the ability to suffer defeats or setbacks, and yet still maintain the faith and the will to win. The victory went instead to those few who kept on, long after all the others, with spirits in ruins and hearts broken, had quit, forever defeated. Again, there is no substitute for perserverance. In poker, boxing, business, politics and war, even in the great explorers' race to be first to reach the South Pole almost a century ago, all the same. In anything, all the same. Past, present, and future. I just hope I can live by my own words. I hope I can learn to play poker that way. It's not easy, but I might be a champion. So might anyone. Oh, and here's something else, for those who bluff too much or call too many hands, mistakenly thinking it somehow makes them "tough", as opposed to the "weakness" displayed by a man who folds . From Shakespeare: "Discretion is the better part of valor." Carl Balis Glenolden PA | ||
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