Lee Davy talks about the power of choice and how an unlikely teacher emerged from his home game to help him figure out how to make better ones.
I called Terry Welsh ‘The Run’ because when he held a straight, that’s what he called it. He also called AK ‘The Big Stick.’ He was the fish in the game who barely knew the rules. But he turned out to be my teacher.
When we got it in I always had the best of it. But the times when Terry would hit his miracle one outer would send me in search of a bare-knuckle boxing champion. I couldn’t handle him, but he always handled me.
I would shout at him for getting it in with the worst of it. I would try and make him look foolish seeking to remind the rest of the table that despite doing my coconuts I was better than him. It was pure ego 101.
And then, I would take a pause, realise that I was acting like a dick and apologise to him. He would smile, then laugh, and pat me on the head.
“There’s nothing to apologise for, Lee.” He would say.
Why didn’t I ever get under his skin?
The Pause
A great book to improve your poker is Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Terry was no reader, but I often imagined a tatty copy lying on his nightstand.
Frankl survived the Nazi Concentration Camps of World War II and later created a form of psychotherapy known as Logotherapy. Throughout his time in the death camps, while being tortured and watching everyone around him disappear, he learned that the Nazi’s could take everything away from him except one thing – his right to choose how to react to a given situation.
Frankl reminds you that somewhere between my shouts and Terry Welsh’s reaction, lies a choice. Nestled in the fabric of that choice lies who I am and who I will become. Welshy was a man who could keep his emotions in check. His choice was one of inaction. I couldn’t keep mine in check. My choice was anger. As I was an idiot. He was cool, calm and collected.
I thought I was the master and he was my student.
It was the other way around.
The Operating System
It’s not only at the poker table that I behave in this way. The inability to control my negative responses to external stimuli haunts me throughout life. It has resulted in one divorce and a lot of broken relationships. But there is hope.
In an age where smarter people than me are concerned about the rise of Artifical Intelligence (AI) and how if left unchecked they could cause great harm, it’s worth remembering that we also have an underlying operating system.
When it comes to my operating system, my parents were the programmers. They uploaded their religious leanings, their values, and their beliefs. As I aged, I became self-actuating. I would watch my peers playing the game of life and update my operating system.
That is how Terry became a chilled out old man.
That is how I became an angry young man.
And the best thing is, our operating system can change.
Terry can learn to get angry.
I can learn to be chilled.
The Change
It doesn’t happen overnight. You don’t just observe someone acting in a certain way and then upload new behaviours. You have to do the work. It takes time – often many years.
Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, maintained a diary to help rewire his operating system. Centuries later it was packaged and sold as the book Meditations. It is one of the most sought after books on Stoic philosophy and entrepreneurs such as Ryan Holiday and Tim Ferriss swear by his instructions.
“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realise this, and you will find strength.” Marcus Aurelius.
Reading quotes like these, storing them, and re-reading them, helps. It also helps to have moments of reflection – don’t just gloss over and forget. Ponder how you can inject this lesson into your life. Consider how you could react differently next time.
Begin each day understanding and preparing for the inevitable obstacles that stand in your way. Think about the flush draws that will miss, the one outers that break your heart, and the hands after hands of trash that you have to toss in the muck.
How will you react?
In between stimulus and reaction, there is a choice.
What choice will you make?
Mine, or the choice of an old man who thinks a flush is a fungal infection that produces a fishy smell when you peel back the hood?
