Stages

Not theatre. God knows I'm overly familiar with those right now. But here's the logo for our upcoming show, in case anyone's interested. It's not a pro-nazi show, it very much details in documentary fashion the crime spree committed by The Order, a group of white supremacists in the Pacific Northwest in the mid-80s. I've learned more about racialist extremists in the past 10 weeks than I ever wanted to know, and I'm sure that I'm on several watch lists for my Ebay and Amazon research orders. Did you know that you can buy fully automatic BB guns on Ebay that are full-size replicas of real guns?

Anyway - Maudie has a great post today referencing a great post by Hank about stages of development as a poker player. It got me to thinking, which is usually hazardous to my health. I've been at this for about a year now, and over the last few months have finally made it to the point where my one $1400 tournament win constitutes less than half my annual winnings, so that's pretty good. I think I'm developing as a player, reading, studying, learning to pay attention when not in a hand, all that jazz. But every time I think I've made a step, I read the blogs of my compatriots and see how low on the learning scale they rank themselves.

That amazes me. I've played with and been schooled by some of these folks, and either they seriously under-rate themselves as card players, or they know a lot mo betta players than I do.

For the record, I think I'm on Stage 2 on Hank's scale - I'm learning. I figure I'll be here a while, because with all the stuff I'm learning, putting it into play is still the challenge, and I get these Ta-Da moments every now and then when I can combine a good read with a "blink" moment to make the right call against all the other indicators, or when my opponent says "he senses weakness" and folds while I'm thinking "yeah I sense weakness, look at how you're holding your cards - you're just looking for an excuse to fold!" Lots to think about, and when you see people whose strategy posts you read rank themselves as learning, I start to think well if they think they're still learning, then I must be WAY behind. Not any kind of self-deprecating crap, I still have an ego the size of Cleveland, but just useful info.