multijimbo

Poker players, to be successful, must not only study the structure of the game itself, but also must become aware of the leaks in their game. A leak for a poker player is a a hole in their game though which they leak chips or money; it’s an area of their game in which they are making suboptimal decisions.

The key here is perspicacity. Poker players need to be aware of their own leaks, as well as the leaks in the games of the folks with whom they’re playing. I’ve given some thought to the leaks I have in my own poker game, and I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t set them out here. If I were to decide to move from recreational player to a more serious player, I would find a coach, someone who I would ask to watch my game and give me their perspective on my play.

Leaks are a much broader phenomenon than just poker. What are the leaks in my writing practice? What are the leaks in my mathematical work? What are the leaks in my aikido practice? What are the leaks in my administrative work? And it is this wider applicability of these ideas from one area to other areas that reflects this glorious interconnectedness, or at least one aspect of this glorious interconnectedness.

Though not in these terms, I’ve written before about the leaks in my writing practice, particularly the leak of not finishing. I don’t like rewriting and I don’t like editing, and it’s always a more attractive prospect to start a new story than to fix an old story, one that’s almost but not quite completed. And so this is the leak I’m currently working to fix. And I’m aware of other leaks as well, but that’s for another day.

I’m pondering the leaks in my aikido practice, and this is difficult. We haven’t been able to hold a typical aikido session for more than a year, and so it’s been a long time since someone has grabbed me with intent. We’ve been keeping ourselves going with regular zoom classes, of necessity focusing on aspects of solo practice.

And so, not only will any extant leaks that had been in place a year ago still be present, they will be larger, due to the lack of practice, and I’m sure there will be a host of new leaks as well. We will all for instance need to be a bit cautious as we work our way back into regular practice, given our time away and our lack of practice in falling down.

The leaks in my administrative work is a fascinating area of ponderation, and one that I’ll come back to at another time.

But I find pondering this interconnectedness, applying the terminology of one area to another, to be illuminating, and inordinately so at times. As much as anything, I find it useful to have as many ways of interrogating my own practice as possible.

~ by Jim Anderson on 10 April 2021.

Posted in bizarre and random things, education and university life, poker and other games