BON VOYAGE!!

I’m thinking of what to wear today when I board the Freedom of the Seas ship. I think of images I’ve seen of the 20’s and 30’s when people viewed this as a really special event and dressed to the 9’s to mark such an occasion. Waving from the decks to the onlookers onshore that were there to see them off.

With travel being so more regular today, the specialness has worn off and like so many things today, has become blasé. I imagine the common dress will be shorts and sandals, stained shirts and crunched up baseball caps, a far cry from the top hats of yesteryear. Times change, however, but as I get older I’m not sure they always change for the better.

Poker has certainly changed over the years and has gone through a significant growth spurt in the decade and a half that I’ve played it. When I started playing in 1995, the average poker player’s age to me seemed to be around 50. Today if you’re over 28 you’re a dinosaur. With the general players being more conservative back then, the concept of the game was “tight is right,” or specifically in No Limit, “no set, no bet,” a far cry from todays “play on margin” or “exploit the hand range” game.

As far as I can tell, the key strategy is not to get stuck in the past, but appreciate it for what it was and adapt to the game that is today. “Adapt or die”, someone once said. And I’m mindful of that as I board the ship today with her name being Freedom.

Freedom has to do with the ability to choose. Where there is no choice there is no freedom. It would be nice to think that the ship I’m on had the freedom to choose where she sailed, but she doesn’t. She’s told where to go and when and is carefully navigated to specific ports of call. It has to be that way so that her passengers can have the safety of order and predictability. Can you imagine boarding a ship in which the destination and manifest was blank? You ask the captain, “where are we going?” and he responded, “I don’t know, but I’ll tell you when we get there. After all, you are on the Freedom of the Seas! She goes where the wind takes her.” Now that would be a step towards freedom.

When playing a poker hand, so many players want to know exactly how to play it. They need the order and predictability of knowing what the “right” thing to do is, especially those moralists who remain entrenched in right and wrong. In today’s game, however, if you really want to play at a superior level, there must be a type of freedom in ones play. One must develop the freedom to play a hand in many different ways. Developing the ability to choose how to play your hand in dynamic circumstances is vital. Here’s why; the way you play your hand will change depending on who or whom (opponent) you have in front of you.

So my freedom is expressed in my choice of dressing up or dressing down today and having the courage to stand out if I choose to not go along with the crowd. I can also fit in by the way, if I so choose, to bend and blend so to speak. Being mindful that making the “right” choice starts and ends with me.

Enjoy the Journey!