Slightly Off Topic

I have been producing articles for the best part of two years now for The Hendon Mob and I have waffled about an awful lot of things in that time. This week I was under a little time pressure to get something written so I had to wing it so please forgive me this once (as if you horrible lot ever would).

So this week I might just have a good old ramble for the very first time and see what I come out with. Actually I have been thinking recently about what would be a good idea for a forum series and that would be to discuss the main thread topics of the week and we could call it “a week on the forum”… let me know about that one… might be a bad idea.

I mentioned the subject of “Galfond Dollars” on the forum last week or “g-bucks” for short and someone asked me if I would write an article on it. While I find this concept deeply fascinating, I have to confess that there are far better qualified people on this forum than me to write about such a thing.

But I love the way how good old “Clay” challenges traditional poker theory, its probably what makes him the best there is online in my opinion. But I have long since been a crusader of opposing conventional strategies myself although I have yet to scale the heights of “Big Phil” in the online poker scene and likely never will.

I have never liked copying anyone at anything and prefer to go my own way. In fact even now when everyone is clamouring to use PokerTracker or Hold’em Manager, I still use my trusted Poker Office software and this has proved very valuable for me recently and has transformed my results dramatically from last year. I don’t see much discernable difference between the three and the new Poker Office 5 is even better in my opinion.

But it’s the choices that people make as individuals and the myriad of successful ways that poker can be played that makes this game that we all love so fascinating. The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of ways to play poker successfully and even using tracking software along the lines of what I have just mentioned, there are still a very large number of variations available to a player in how they can analyse the data in order to get an edge.

As more and more players are using tracking software then the edge may just lay in variations in data analysis rather than doing the analysis at all. I am sure that there are enough creative thinkers out there who can devise totally unique ways of analysing tracker data. But it is this flexibility of thought that will create many new opportunities for players in the future and they may need to do this if the games get any tougher.

I also think that it is vital that people recognise that methods that they don’t use personally and are used by others can still be as equally successful. At the end of the day, poker is about making money in whatever capacity but it is also about enjoyment and relaxation as well.

Speaking for myself, if someone is playing poker differently to me then I want to know what they are doing if at all possible. I want to know this because I would like to know if their style is superior to mine or whether they have a part of their methodology that is suitable to my own individual situation.

But I also want to know because the day may come when my own way of playing may for whatever reason be no longer working. This is why joining a poker community such as this one is so important to not only the advancement of a player but also to gain all of the other advantages that are associated from joining a group think tank.

So I think that it is important that we remember where we are and what we are trying to do and that the future may not be as bright as the present. The people who are on this forum can help each other in ways that we may not currently be able to envisage. So aggression and hostility and any other ill feelings or issues really have no place. Because bringing that onto a forum in my mind is like a poker player chastising a novice for playing badly after just taking a bad beat off them… pointless and counter productive.