Plato, Pain and Poker

Pain and pleasure are funny things. No one likes pain and everyone (as far as I know) likes pleasure, but you really can't have one without the other. Think about your right ankle for a minute. It feels fine (hopefully), but its not really giving you pleasure. However, if it was shackled for days with a metal chain that was digging into your skin you'd be feeling pain. When the shackle was taken off you'd feel incredible pleasure. This situation is how Plato starts out his famous work known as The Last Days of Socrates. Socrates makes a very convincing case that pleasure can not really exist without pain. Its the contrast, not the state itself that creates pleasure and its brother, happiness.

It seems to me that Plato must have played poker (or the Greek equivalent). We poker players feel a lot of pain - especially in tournaments. We get so close only to lose to a weak player who makes a bad play so many times. We enter a tournament and lose. We enter another tournament and lose again. But if you play well and don't give up, sooner or later you're going to go deep and eventually win. When that happens, the pleasure is far greater than all that pain we experienced up to that point. Its ecstasy. Its like the gods love us. We feel at one with the universe. OK, maybe that's a bit much. But the point is that all that hardship allows us to feel this high degree of happiness we couldn't otherwise experience.

The same thing occurs with entrepreneurs. You fork out lots of money for a long time to create and build a business. For the longest time you get nothing in return. Roadblocks. Fighting entrenched competition. Fear of losing everything. It ain't for everyone. Its tough. Its stressful. But when you finally get those first customers. You get some positive feedback. You keep improving your product or service, flashes of success suddenly appear. Its a great feeling. I've known one successful entrepreneur who told me, the most important thing in starting a business is persistence. Don't give up. Keep trying to improve your product or service and in the end, you'll be successful. Too many people throw in the towel too early. Don't be afraid of pain. In the end, it's the only way you can feel the triumph of success on a whole other plane.

Stick with it, my friend, and everything will be alright.

Rich and Poor

As the holiday season is roaring through as it seems to every year, I find myself thinking about goals, life and the "big picture."

Sure its great to be rich I suppose, but it seems that so many people who achieve that distinction fall short in the happiness area. I often wonder why that is. Millionaires committing suicide. Lottery winners years later wishing they never won. What the heck is at work here? I thought vast riches make us happy. The Great American Dream. etc. etc.

Riches seem to be but one piece of the puzzle -- and maybe not even that. Of course we need enough money to cover our basic needs plus a little. But it is also critical that we pursue honesty, credibility and fairness in our everyday life. Hey, it's Christmas, what the heck did you expect me to say. I can't help it if its true as well.

Poker forces you to wear your opponents shoes. What makes him tick? What is his tolerance for risk? Is he capable of deception? Does he care about money? (You'd be surprised how many people there are like Fred Stallworth who have little regard for the green stuff.) Sometimes I feel like I'm transcending their souls. I'm so attuned to my opponents view of the world that I feel as if I am them. I play like them. I adopt their tendencies. I can read their minds for god sake! That, my friends is "the zone" of the poker world. It doesn't happen often, but when it occurs its magical. My cards are very secondary. Often I won't even look at them. I find it happening the most in tournaments when I'm at the table with a similar group of people over a long period of time -- six or more hours.

So this got me thinking of the famous UltimateBet program that could read other peoples hands. Russ Hamilton alledgedly used it to fleece millions from online players. Now he must live within a community (the poker player world is fairly tight knit) where he'll be despised. Are those illgotten gains going to be worth the hatred he'll be facing in heeps? If I was granted the power of seeing my opponents hands, would I want it? Gone is the excitement of making a great read. Gone would be the adrenaline rush of winning a big tournament. Guilt would permeate. Poker for me would lose much of its appeal. Gone is the satisfaction of winning a fair fight. Gone is the deserved respect from your peers.

Ask yourself what wish you'd make if you were granted one by Leroy the magical dealer. Would you want to live forever? Not me; who would want to outlive their kids. Would you ask for $10 billion? Too much responsibility. Keep it. The power to heal the sick with a touch? They'd be breaking my door down. When it comes down to it; Leibniz may have been onto something; "we live in the best of all possible worlds." We can't truly enjoy the happy unless we get a dose of pain as Plato tells us. That seems to be the way the world works. Maybe pursuit of a pampered life isn't what we want after all. Maybe we need discomfort to feel alive. We need challenge to keep us going. Maybe we need to focus outward rather than on ourselves. Feed our primitive mind. Maybe Willie was on to something.

But, hey, what do I know. I'm just a poker player.