Projects Everywhere!

Summer finds me busily creating new tools and resources for you.
So, today, instead of a new article, I’m enclosing one of my poker
articles. You can read the rest at gutshot.com
by clicking on the titles in the right column. I also highly
recommend the articles of Tommy Angelo, available at tommyangelo.com

I’m very pleased to have served Tommy as an editor since the
beginning of 2006.

And, instead of a new book recommendation, I have made a page
containing all my recommendations to date. For your convenience,
they are all listed at annaparadox.com/recommendations with clickable links to buy them at Amazon.com.

Have a great summer! I’ll be back on the first Tuesday in August
with a new article. Until then, please enjoy this piece of poker
humor.

Win Every Session

By Anna Paradox

They say you can’t win them all. Well, they’re wrong. I can win
every single session. It’s easy. I just set my winning condition to
‘play some poker’.

So I sit down, pay my blind, find it’s three raises back to me,
have a look at Nine-Three off-suit and fold. Hurrah! I won! I
played some poker! Wasn’t that great!

Maybe not. A winning condition like that is so easy to fulfill that
it doesn’t seem very satisfying when I make it. So I look for
something a little harder.

Each hand of poker has a defined winning condition. The winner is
the one who gets the pot. Leaving aside split pots for the moment,
it’s that simple. Take the pot, win a hand. The rules define who
gets the pot, and sometimes those rules become quite baroque. But
the condition itself is simple.

So let’s say I play a session and win eighteen pots but leave when
I run out of chips. And my buddy Josephine comes along and says,
“Did you win?” and I say,

“Yeah! I won eighteen pots!”

So she says, “Cool! How much did you win?”

And at this point I am forced to sheepishly admit that I lost
everything I took to the table. And then we both step back and Jo
says, “Hey! Winning means having more money than you sat down with
when you leave!”

“Jo, do you think most poker players would agree with that?”

“Anna, I certainly do.”

“Jo, I think you’re right, you brilliant and gorgeous figment of my
imagination. Hey, great dress you’re wearing today!”

“Thanks, you look great too!”

“Thanks!”

So Jo and I have settled to our own satisfaction that we both look
fabulous and that the usual winning condition of poker is to leave
a cash game with more money than you brought to it. Any
disagreements, take them up with Jo.

After tournaments, the players commonly make two kinds of
statements. “I was just happy to make the money”. These players had
their winning condition set to taking away more money than they
bought in for. And, the second place player commonly says, “I
really wanted to win the whole thing”. These players have their
winning condition set to “Come in first”. And maybe most of the
time, neither group realizes there was any other choice of winning
condition possible. Those second place finishers certainly can seem
seriously glum about scoring one hundred times their buy-in.

So, anyway, I set my winning condition to ‘leave the table with
more money than I brought to it’, and one day, quite by accident, I
dump a plate of spaghetti on Radulich. He screams, shoves all his
chips into the pot, and runs to the Gents’.

Two hands later, he returns to his seat and quite serenely re-buys
for the table maximum. “Sorry about the spaghetti, Rad,” I say.

“What spaghetti?” he replies. Interesting, I think.

The next session, I come prepared. I bring a slingshot and a dozen
shot loads of spaghetti. Each time I flop a strong hand and
Radulich is still in, I hit him with the spaghetti and take all his
chips. Thus assuring myself a hugely profitable session.

After Rad calls it a night, still not sure what hit him; one of the
guys comes up to me and says, “Great dress! But hey, it’s not right
what you’re doing to Radulich. At least share your spaghetti.”

“Good point,” I say.

So next session, every player except poor Rad – who fortunately has
unlimited funds – comes armed with their own slingshot. Every time
he sees a flop, someone hits him with the spaghetti. Rad spends
more time in the Gents’ than at the table, and meatballs and
noodles and sauce are flying everywhere.

Finally, when our dealer has taken all the Parmesan in the eye he
can stand, he calls Management. And Management says to us, “Look,
Gentlemen and Lady – and I use those terms very loosely to describe
this table full of spaghetti-shooting degenerates with the maturity
of two-year olds – you players are costing us a ton in carpet
cleaning. We did not sign on to host a game of pasta potshots, this
is a card room. So play poker, or I’m tossing the lot of you out.”

So, we all put away our slingshots, and Rad gets to play the rest
of the evening in peace.

And when it comes time for me to leave, I take my chips without
counting them, and I go tell Jo, “Guess what! I won!”

“How much?” she asks.

“A lot! I learned that there are some things you can’t do in poker
to get more chips!”

“So,” says Jo, “You’re saying you won because you learned
something?”

“Yeah. Isn’t it great!”

“I can buy that,” says Jo. “Besides, that tomato sauce didn’t
flatter your Vera Wang at all.”

“You’re so right,” I say.

May you all find the winning conditions that make your games an
enjoyable challenge.

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Book Recommendation

Please see annaparadox.com/recommendations for a list of previously recommended books. I’ll be back with a new
recommendation next issue!

————

Would you like to share this newsletter? Please do! And please keep
the paragraphs below attached.

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Anna Paradox is a life coach who speaks science fiction. Her clients
invest in themselves to achieve their dreams. If you’d like to join
them, call me at 505-640-0979. Or email me at anna@annaparadox.com

Creating Space is her twice-monthly newsletter with tips, insights,
and a book recommendation for science fiction fans and space
activists. You can subscribe at www.annaparadox.com/newsletter, and
read back issues there, too.

Wings of Infinity, 2100 Thomas Dr, Las Cruces, NM 88001, USA