Expectation vs Reality

The hardest challenge in our life is to overcome our own isolation and don't mix up the expectations of our illusions and dreams with the reality, life might be cruel and complicated at times but that's what makes it interesting and worthwhile. What we make out of it is based on our ability to make the most logical and reasonable decision at any time and have full control over our emotions and feelings.

The human mind can be a powerful tool, at the same time it can lead to so much confusion and let us believe things that we want to believe, just because they are much better than the reality. At the poker tables, it is crucial to have a balanced mind set … otherwise we will most likely not be able to play our best game. But we shall also stay critical at any time so we don’t get overwhelmed by the heat of the moment, because we would not be able to make a reasonable and unbiased decision.

It is part of our human mind though that we let feelings and emotions take over control and influence our decisions, they might not always be the most logical choice … the good point though is that this separates us from the robots and machines. We all make mistakes and they are part of the learning process called “life”. You might ask what this has to do with poker, well there are a lot of similarities at the poker table as well and our emotions might play a bigger role than we actually imagined or expected before.

There are a few possible options to increase our odds and improve that sense for reality, but you can’t really learn that from someone else … you can get advice and take classes in Yoga or Meditation or anything else that helps to find the way to your inner self and establish the much needed balance of body and soul. But it is up to you to find your own way to discover that and it will probably never be as good as the skill that some people have in their veins by default. This talent is a gift and some people know to use it, others don’t even realize that they had this skill at all.

Poker is a game where you have to combine a lot of different things at the same time and should always make the most logical choice based on your experience and knowledge, sometimes it does help and you need the balls, gut feeling or killer instinct. But in the long run, you need to control your emotions as good as possible and keep them out of your game, because they would just be an unwelcome distraction that lets you lose the focus for the important decisions.

It is a fact though that our expectations will always be higher, because we tend to be competitive and value ourselves above the rest. That is part of our nature and mentality and only the best can have a reasonable and unbiased point of view about the own skills compared to your opponents. We always want to win and expect that the better hand preflop always wins … the Aces getting cracked by 35 off suit is not part of the plan and a very unpleasant side effect that we always gonna complain about in a forum or on a blog. We also blame our opponent and claim that he / she is much worse and should have never even been involved in the hand. 

But the reality is quite different and maybe we let them catch up because we misplayed the hand? 

Sure, bad beats and suckouts happen and that will always be a part of the game … but you need to analyze if you might have not played the hand as perfectly as you thought it was at the point it took place. The more we learn about this game and the more knowledge we pick up, the better our understanding for the game and all its aspects (including bad beats) and take everything more relaxed. 

It’s a tough pill to swallow when you realize you might not be the best player on this planet and maybe not the most talented one, but with hard work you can increase your chances to become more successful. You always have to be realistic though and don’t expect to win every game … sure we always play to win, but not even the Pro’s won every single tournament that they participated in. But compared to the average player, they pretty much know what they are doing and work on their game every single day. It is just a matter how serious your approach towards poker is and what your goals are.

Is there any specific reason why you actually play? And if so, what do you expect to gain from playing poker or is it just a way to burn some time and escape into a different world where all other problems don’t expect while you are playing. The reason we play does have a serious influence on the understanding of the game and it is hard to change that predefined tuning, because it was already established in our mind. What happens when we wake up and get confronted with the reality or how does our understanding of the game grow with the experience and knowledge we gain whenever we play or deal with anything poker related.

Does your poker experience also have any influence on your approach to solve other issues in real life? Maybe it changes your attitude towards some aspects of your life and you didn’t even realize it yet? Online poker is as real as live poker, because your mind will always be busy and occupied … but the own thinking process and the conclusions that you take out of it are one of the most crucial steps to improve and also help you to solve other problems in different areas of your life that seemed fairly impossible before.

Once you have realized why you actually play poker you can take the next step in order to improve on your specific level, you don’t have to be perfect but everybody loves to be competitive at everything they do. So why not putting up some effort and find out where the own border between illusion and reality is? Fully understanding your decisions and everything that surrounds you make the exercise and experience by far more worthwhile … .

Don’t be lazy and take everything for granted or that it gonna be the same just because it always did in the past … life is by far too short to stand still. Sometimes the reality might hurt, but that is part of the contract you signed and you can’t always pick the easy way unless you don’t care at all.

Thanks for your attention, any feedback is highly appreciated.