Newsletter January 2015

It's More Fun When You Are Winning!

Soft Touch Says

A Question for Ed...

With a Little Bit of Luck

Who Ya Gonna Call?

Soft Touch Says -

My dear readers, welcome to the January newsletter. Brrrrrr to all of you shivering, shoveling, or surrendering soles having to deal with the onslaught of winter weather in the Mid-West and North East. Yesterday, I had to get out the ear muffs for my palm trees. Really!!!

Seriously now, I cannot disclose exactly when, but I have plans to meet up with the Dice Coach next month. We have several days of dice recon to do along with a poker tournament or two. With any luck, I may have some news for y'all following the trip. Stay tuned.

Speaking of luck and poker, Ed is publishing an article about both topics. I know it is not a topic for craps players, but I think the message applies well to our game. It kind of has a Beatles theme going with subtle hints of Rocky Raccoon's hurt ego, getting hit in the eye, and then getting flat out beat.

Hap-pi-ness is a warm, warm... roll,

Sorry, I just got this other Beatle's song going in my head now as I was signing off.

Soft Touch 

Hey Ed, I have been practicing setting and tossing the dice for three months. I log each practice session and review sessions and sets with results. I am not sure that I am getting where I need to be. I have had several outstanding long rolls. But I still have the old 6-7 roll hands. How long did it take you to get good at dice control? Will T.

Thanks for you question and compliment Will, but who says that I am any good? Be patient. You didn't mention how many practice hours you have logged in three months, so I am just going to give you encouragement to keep at it. The skill takes time and anything worth doing takes time. There's plenty of advice in the pages of Dice Setter to help you along the way.

I suppose that I felt I had the gist of it after about 15,000 rolls. Not that I kept a record on all of them. Perhaps the first five to six thousand rolls. I still practice a few times a month.

Ed Jones

Editor / ed@dicesetter.com

With a Little Bit of Luck

Mate, I’ll have an additional 37 grams of luck if you don’t mind? No wait, better if I take that in ounces, if it is all the same to you gov’ner? Blimey me, when it comes to ordering up a little bit of luck, I’ve got no idea the measure of a little bit. Come to think of it, asking you mate, makes no sense a’tall. Better off that I should Google up a little bit of luck. Lucky for me, I can find anything I need on the Internet. Bit of Luck

So, I am sitting in the big blind with queen/duce. Two callers ahead of me and no one raised. I checked to see the flop. The flop came 2/Q/2. I made a four unit raise. There was one caller (Rocky) and the other player folded. The turn card was a 7. I bet out and Rocky quickly called the bet. The river card was the Jack of Diamonds. I slow played, checking the bet, and was raised all-in. I called the all-in. I rolled the full house. In anger, Rocky threw his cards into the muck, muttering how it’s better to be lucky.

Me lucky? Well, first of all, the disgruntled Rocky disclosed his weakness early on, showing off his WSOP card to another player who was sitting in on the game. (Look at me  ego mate!) He wanted to be sure the rest of us in the game got his message. It turned out the other player was a card carrying member too. The game took place during the World Series of Poker Tournament held annually in Las Vegas. The two pro players were slumming it in a nickel, no limit game, bullying and intimidating the peasants.

So, how could I make the call? Never mind that I was holding the winning hand. I had been studying Rocky and his buddy’s playing technique. Their method was relentless, but simple. Just push the rest of the players around. Their “tells” were hanging out like tails on monkeys. There was no way my hand could have ever been behind. Rocky tried to bully me with a predictable all-in, just like he had been doing all game. His big mistake was the bet he made with his ego. He assumed his arrogance would be enough to intimidate his opposition. I was supposed to be fearful, respect his all-in raise, back down, and fold my hand.

A little bit of luck was not the reason I held the winning hand. Like a patient hunter, I hit the hand that I had been waiting for, and that is that. I played the hand perfectly and Rocky fell into the trap. Since ego hates being out smarted, it makes ego is an easy mark. Playing out of control, emotionally, is the number one reason to leave ego out of the game. You see how it ended for Rocky Raccoon after getting hit by a rock in the eye. (I’m gonna get that boy…poor Rocky boy.)

I was not lucky. Luck had nothing to do with my heighten awareness of the energy and the attempted intimidation. For me, poker is a waiting game. It is all about timing, laying traps, and pulling the trigger. Without a show of power, pre-flop, I had the opportunity of seeing the flop. Flopping a full house, I knew that my time had come. All I had to do was to lure my opponent out of as many of his cheques as possible. If there was any luck, it was dumb luck on the part of Rocky’s play. He assumed that his self-importance provided him with a cloak of convincing superiority. Essentially, Rocky put his own foot into his own trap.

True, you can certainly out play another player in a game of poker, but in the end, at the show down, you can never be better than the cards. Bluffing and losing at the showdown does not make the winner simply lucky. Luck is the excuse given to a winner’s commitment.

Metaphysically, it is a better to possess confidence and take ownership of your ability and skill, than to hand off your power to chance, hoping to catch it lucky. Confidence comes with consistency of belief and action. It requires a dedicated commitment to your intended goal. You make your energy bigger by believing in and exercising right time, right place, and right action.

A belief that has luck dictating your fate is hinged to chance. That simply distills down to surrendering to a way of life that is just lucky. Are you lucky enough to be that lucky? Are you willing to allow life to be dictate by luck or your command of ability and skill?

Okay, I’m going to try to get out of this now, if I’m lucky. Back to the opening about ordering up a little bit of luck. In today’s world, that is like saying let’s run down to the blacksmith and get some…ah, what the hell do you go to the blacksmith for anyway? Luck is not acquired from a place or from a shelf, any more than it resides with someone in the moment. Luck is not a commodity to be accessed like a bottle of aspirin for a headache. Luck is an expression of your energy. It is not a random capricious event. Your energy draws like energy. What you put out you get back. Energy manifests with your greater sense of self. I am what I am. Popeye said that.

One definition of luck: Luck is the explanation given to circumstances that cannot be explained logically, or in a tangible manner. Luck cannot be understood in a way that makes sense because it cannot be duplicated. A dictionary version goes something like; to prosper or have good fortune by chance.

Make your energy big and you spin out of the ordinary and mundane ways of everyday life. You will ride closer to the edge of the etheric dimension, which in turn, puts you closer to the near future. By doing so, you are more likely to perceive events that are just about to happen. Again, energy draws like energy, aligned to vibration forces. It harmonizes and resonates, in a perceivable and identifiable feeling. When you create a winner’s energy, you create an energy of “can do, kick ass”. A winner’s energy settles for nothing less than your best. The neat thing is that you can draw these kinds of experiences into your daily life with not much effort. It requires a shift in thought form and a shift in daily practice. Of course, your intentions are invisible, so your winning ways will confound others that have a lesser energy. Thus, because your bigger energy cannot be seen or explained, your winning ways will be understood simply as being lucky.

The warrior sage lives a life with intention, discipline, and skill rather than haphazard chance. You can have whatever you want, except for one thing, you have to want it!

Copyright ©2015 Michael Vernon

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