Your ego is why you feel the need to explain things

“Zen has made me stop trying to explain things” Ram

Ram’s statement was very interesting to me. To me, it means to show how unimportant it is that people agree with you.

So I was trying to think of why we explain things to people. I came up with three primary reasons:

1) Because they don’t understand something and want to understand it, so we give them the information. This is positive and is often how people learn things.

2) As an information exchange, because we have different (or sometimes similar) viewpoints as someone else and wish to come to a better understanding of each others viewpoint and possibly to a conclusion or a compromise. This is also positive and is often how disputes are solved as well as how further learning is accomplished.

3) Because we feel our opinion is right and we have a desire to make other people(s) agree with us or see us as superior. This is negative and is an extension of our ego as people, which is the major flaw of the human race that we need to fight.

I see #3 a lot in poker. People arguing at the table about what the right play was, who is a donk etc. But it makes no sense. Are they trying to teach as in #1 or exchange information for further understanding as in #2? That’s silly, unless of course it is a friend or an information exchange of ideas like on a poker forum.

It is clearly almost always #3, the player’s ego makes him want to be seen as a superior player, or his ego forces him to defend himself from being labeled a donk. There really is no need for either of these, except to satisfy our ego.

It seems that in poker, as well as life, #3 can only produce feelings of frustration, anger, and resentment when people don’t agree with you, fight your ideas, or shoot them down. #3 has no positive recoil as far as I can see. Often, #3 is what holds people back in life, keeps them from being happy, keeps disputes and conflicts alive like the centuries old conflict over holy land in the middle-east or the conflicts among families or friends.

Have you heard the saying “We agree to disagree”? Let it end there and move on. Life is too precious for #3.

Can I get a little sympathy, please?

“When you get all tangled up, you just tango on” Lt. Colonel Frank Slade

So after receiving an abundance of bad beats in live n/l games in early January, including two one-outers and several two-outers in very large pots, I hibernated into cyber-poker for most of the rest of the month. Saturday night I went back to see if the live tables had missed me.

$1/2 n/l at the MGM, I come in to what seems like a pretty live game and wait 2 hands to post. My very first hand, I get AA. One player limps and a young kid makes it $15 from the button; perfect spot for a new guy at an aggressive table. I make it $45. Limper folds and button calls with a “don’t try to bully me, new guy” glare. Flop comes A95, I try for the weak lead and bet out $20, he bites and makes it $60 and I push all-in the rest of my $200. If he folds, I’ve set up exactly the image I can use to my advantage. Instead he insta-calls and I show him the AAA and he disgustingly shows a set of 5s. Turn pairs the 9, river is a 5. I rebuy.

Welcome back!