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Roy Bhasin is a professional poker player and a member of PokerStars Team Online who specializes in pot-limit omaha cash games. He talks to us about how he got into poker, how he got into PLO, and how he got into self-improvement (hint: Tommy Angelo and Jared Tendler had a lot to do with it, as did a book called Getting Things Done). Roy’s new blog, which explores the self-discipline and motivational techniques that he finds useful in poker and in life, is at http://zenpokerguy.com/. You can follow Roy on Twitter @roybhasin.
0:30 – Hello and Welcome
13:00 – The Roy Bhasin story
28:13 – Your PLO questions answered
The double nickel, fwiw, was when Jordan came back — “wearing the four-five” — and dropped 55 on the New Yawk Knickerboxers in MSG in just his 5th game after 18 months away from basketball.
The coles notes (including classic Pat Riley 1,000 mile stare):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y53pPr8NwU
And for the true MJ junkies(I’m looking at you Leo Wolpert) or people who just like seeing a NY team getting the business:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3wGUoXMacs
A wonderful nugget into AB’s childhood… playing “I doubt it” to everyone’s “bullshit.” Flanders would nod with approval.
The Flanders thing cracked me, as did AB’s crack about Nate being an anomalous child for preferring to read something over playing it.
I think Nate is vastly overestimating the literary pursuits of the world’s children and potentially (I make no specific claim) underestimating the anomalousness of his own rearing.
I dunno, I think that there’s definitely some material (if minority) proportion of kids who get into a subject and then want to devour any book or anything else related to the subject that they can get their hands on, repeatedly and in intimate detail. And I would guess that they are a higher proportion of the set of kids who would get into games like poker early than they are of the population at large. (and I was definitely one)
Well when you put it like that… I agree 🙂 Children do have a high capacity for total immersion don’t they. Discovering sex really does ruin everything.
Thanks for addressing my question. Hopefully it doesn’t turn off all the balla listeners.
I was not interested in the ethics question. The book suggestion was much appreciated, as well as the broader discussion.
Piefarmer – how about cribbage? You have counting, card combinations, and a bit of strategy and guessing during the card playing phase, i.e. if he opens with a 9 do I play the 9 for 2 points or is he holding another 9 (thus he will score 6 points).
Andrew – I really wish dealers would enforce the higher chip amount rule more. I tend to ask for chip counts much more than others at $1/$2 tables, where the issues Nate mentioned are even more prevalent (in terms of attitude and not knowing stack sizes matter).
I thought the productivity/zen/ultimate objective discussion was interesting. I think personally I need some down time doing little or nothing within my overall routine. Whilst I can no doubt use my productive time better, there’s a balance to be found between doing and not doing. And I’m sure that I can make my not-doing more high quality not-doing, but I’m not sure that that is achieved by turning it into doing.
But I guess different people are different – I’ve met a couple of people for whom working genuinely seems to be their ultimate relaxation, for example, and I find some of these interviews (GreenPlastic’s springs to mind) interesting precisely because they seem to reveal completely different outlooks on life to mine.
an old woman tried to call the tournament director on me for asking people to let me see how many chips they had before making call/fold decisions, a form of intimidation in her mind.
My experience of weaning myself off coffee (and off levels quite a lot higher than it sounded like Roy was talking about) is that it’s pretty intense for a week or perhaps two, but that it’s done well within a month.
Ian, did you keep it up, and how has it been? Have now abstained for 8 consecutive days and feel pretty good (which is a surprise to me: I thought I needed it!).
The goal was never to stop completely, but more to reset my intake to a lower level than it had reached. It mostly worked for that, although I would then start to ramp up again after a while. I don’t know what the long term effects of high caffeine consumption are, I probably should look into it. Right now I’ve just been given a pretty sweet espresso machine plus my routine is well structured to spending time in cafes, so I’m drinking quite a lot
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