Who is this mustachioed gentleman gracing a poker blog? He is not a famous gambler of old. The ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche – one of the most influential philosophers in the last two hundred years – can pretty much be interpreted as having application everywhere, including poker.

He gets a bad rap because his writings have been co opted for nefarious political purposes in the twentieth century. *cough*Nazis*cough*

But despite that he has a great deal to say about humanity and, since it involves humans, has import when it comes to poker. An important theme of his writing was the notion of human feelings and actions; do they come from weakness or strength? He took nothing for granted. Judging an action is greatly influenced by that question. The very same feelings can be judged favorably in one instance if it is derived from strength and harshly in another if weakness is the motivating force.

So when a hard decision comes up at the table, the question to ask is, “am I acting out of weakness or strength?” Is folding top pair laudable in this instance or is it cowardly? If, having taken all the available information into account, the conclusion is that the hand is most likely to lose, then folding a strong hand would be coming from a place of strength. If however, a player had been bullied around in the hand and just wants to fold because a tougher player has scared and intimidated them, then that would be acting from weakness. It is both cowardly and does not befit a poker player worth his salt.

The same could be said for the converse situation. Ignorant pride and cockiness are tantamount to foolishness. It’s easy, especially after having done well at a table, to be too self assured and feel like every good hand is a winner. That is a recipe for getting taken by a slow played monster. If, by paying more attention to the available information, it is possible to determine that what looks like a strong hand won’t hold up, continuing to raise is foolish and ignorant – weakness.

For more on Nietzsche on this subject check out Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil. Actually he discusses it in many of his books. They’re all worth reading.

From their seminal album London Calling, this song is a great example of what a great band The Clash was. They were as punk as any british street kid but weren’t confined by the standards of the genre; there is only one chord strummed on a guitar in the entire song.

This song tells the tale of a card player who pulled his last trick at the table. After, I suspect, conning his way into an upper class game of poker, the cheat is caught by a dealer and immediate gambler’s justice is visited upon him. He’s shot on the spot.  The song focuses on the seconds before his death as he lay dying. His loneliness and the futility of the life he led confronts the listener as it does the subject of the song.

The end of the song is very confusing but I believe that it is trying to draw parallels between the above situation of the lonely, senseless death of a con man and a similar way of looking at the deaths of those who lost their lives in armed conflict for ideals they weren’t really aware of. As strummer puts it, “in the service of the king.” The crashing horns add to this motif. But the gambler is portrayed as an almost honorable figure whose life nonetheless ends in futility. It seems he wants us to look at a soldier in the same way. That he should be honored and respected while still recognizing that the reasons for their deaths leaves a only, “a solitary man crying hold me.”

Download the song if you’ve never heard it and take a look at the lyrics here. My interpretation may be all wrong but it seems supportable enough. Even without all that, it’s just a great song to listen to.

This concept is another important aspect of poker; indeed, it’s crucial for any game that is to be taken seriously. The nature of poker, however, gives it even more weight. Everyone interacts with the metagame to some extent, though the very best players are conciously aware of it and understand its ins and outs as well as the game of poker itself. I have said many times before, these are the things that interest me most in any competitive situation. Poker is so rife with them, that I suspect it is the reason I like it so much.

But, this is a term some people may not be familiar with. As the title of this post suggests, it is derived from the greek (yes that is the only link to the movie 300, I just thought it was a funny pic to throw up there). “Meta” can be translated as “beyond”. It is usually used in English to indicate an abstraction of some sort, or to talk “about” something on a higher level than the subject itself. So, to talk about the metagame of poker is not to make reference to chips, hand values, betting, etc…. It is intended to refer to the broader arena of the game’s play.

Some examples might make this more clear. These are some meta concerns that most people are aware of, though they may not have realized that they could be classified as such; and, therefore, better understood.

Tilts – This essentially a metagame concern since it is very possible that influences outside of the actual gameplay can cause it. See my previous post on this for more detail. Link

Headphones – a few years ago, the world series allowed players to wear headphones. Some people loved it. It made them more comfortable at the table and so they played better. Others hated it. Players were not paying attention, they had to repeat themselves constantly, it slowed down the game. The act of wearing headphones has nothing to do with poker, yet it had an unmistakable effect on the players and how they played.

ESPN and the Internet Boom – when poker exploded with popularity, people who didn’t know a thing about poker all of a sudden were privy to the tips, secrets, and lingo of the pros to an extent that had never happened before. Nobody knew what “the river” was before ESPN made the world series a household name. I’d venture to bet most people didnt even know Texas Hold ‘em. Most amatuers I knew at the time only knew draw and maybe stud. This meant that the following year’s event was flooded with wannabes and amateurs. The seasoned pros called it a “minefeild” that most didn”t end up making it through. Unknowns took it two years straight (Moneymaker and Raymer). Again, nothing to do with the actual play of the game. Cultural, social, statistical concerns took over having a greater effect than anything else.

The players who can recognize these Metagame twists and turns is at a clear advantage to the one who is just swept up in them like a ship in a storm. Learn the see which ways the winds are blowing and adjust accordingly. Practicing that is at least as important as memorizing percentages and practicing your “pokerface”

For some more info, look up my post on Gamesmanship from a few months ago. Its funny, but deals strictly with metagame conerns. Link

The Corpus Clock was recently unveiled (Sept 19th) at Cambridge University. And DAMN is it cool!!!

It is not digital in any way. It is entirely mechanical. The lights are discs of LEDS that shine through small slits in the golden clock face. The picture alone really doesn’t do it justice. Check out the link to the youtube video at the end of the post to see the thing in action. The light appears to travel around the face of the clock every second, minute, and hour. It was designed to remind the viewer about the fleeting, relative nature of time through the way the lights move and interact They appear to move together and even backwards at some points.

The mechanism that turns the gears is based on an invention by a Cambridge clock maker called a grasshopper. The creature at the top is that mechanism. Its called a Chronophage which means “time eater” and it is meant to look as if it is marching along gobbling up time as it passes.

Check out more info on this, its really amazing. Here’s the youtube link and a link to a news article which gives some more detail.

Which brings me to a home game I just played last week that was anything but enjoyable. The reason being a phenomenon I’m sure many other people are aware of and perhaps have even been guilty of; the home game poker know-it-all. I had the misfortune of having one of these mind-searingly, irritating individuals at a game my buddies and I were playing at a Bar-B-Q. Now at a serious game with other serious players, annoyances and generally unpleasant or at least annoying things are sometimes unavoidable. They are tolerable to an extent because of the situation. One is not playing in that game to make friends or even necessarily to have a good time. For serious players, in a serious game, it is work. Sometimes, like with any job, one simply has to put up with it and get down to business. But when I’m trying to relax and have fun with the game with friends, I want to HAVE FUN! The poker-know-it all removes any semblance of fun.

This person is obnoxious with his constant calculation of odds, recitation of obscure anecdotes, and knowledge of advanced tactics. All of which, mind you, are often slightly inaccurate, as a person who needs to flaunt their knowledge usually has a poor grasp of it. When there is a complication or question about how to divide the pot because of multiple all in calls, or changing chips amongst players, he always has to have his hands in there whether he is involved in it or not. This is so he can show off how quickly he can manipulate chips and calculate what amounts go where. Since this person is usually a relative stranger to any group, he has no idea the skill level of the people he is sitting with. So the fact that he assumes he is so much more advanced in skill level is that much more irritating.

So I beseech all of you reading this. The fact that you are reading a poker website makes it very possible that you may have at some point in the past exhibited traits that would conform to the archetype of the poker-know-it-all. I must admit that I have done so more than once before. If you have, stop! This person is not enjoyable at all to play with and his presence only serves to ruin what should be a relaxing game with friends. So don’t worry about showing off how much you know, or how much you’ve made at your respective online poker site. Just take the opportunity to have fun.