🌗Balance is the greatest power🌗

Sos1l said:

Poker is a game where you must combine opposing qualities within yourself
and be able to use them depending on the situation.

The paradox of poker is that it rewards and punishes the same character traits.

Courage.
Fear.
Discipline.
Curiosity.
Persistence.
Flexibility.

Courage can bring huge profit —
and at the same time destroy your stack.

You weren’t afraid to enter a multiway 3-bet pot with TT, hit a set
and won two stacks against AA and QQ.

Another time, you weren’t afraid to call an all-in with QQ
and lost your entire stack along with the profit from a four-hour session against AK.


Fear (healthy caution) sometimes saves money —
and sometimes costs you +EV.

You weren’t afraid to bluff — and you lost.
You were afraid to bluff — and you lost.

You haven’t played a hand for 40 minutes,
then JJ shows up.
You open, face three all-ins
and are forced to fold.

Hands are revealed: 88, 44, and KQs.
The board misses everyone.
Pocket eights make the money 😂

Curiosity leads to overcalls and expensive mistakes —
and at the same time to huge rewards from bluff-catching.

Persistence and aggression make you a strong and uncomfortable opponent,
your bluffs work more often, and profit grows.

But stubbornness ruins you 😢

Patience and discipline are powerful qualities,
but excessive waiting turns into passivity —
and then people start bluffing you with their favorite two cards 🤣🤦


Poker offers no golden rule.

Because what matters is not the traits themselves,
but their MEASURE.

Without fear — you’re a maniac.
With too much fear — you’re a nit.

A human is like an equalizer of qualities.
🎚️🎚️🎚️
One player’s strength is courage, another’s is caution,
a third has intellect, a fourth has everything combined.

But the most important thing is to feel the MEASURE and the MOMENT —
so you can use your strengths effectively ☝️

That’s why two players can make the same action —
and one gets rewarded while the other gets punished.

One overestimated ATo, called a nit’s 3-bet holding AKs, and lost.
Another called a 3-bet with ATo against a LAG holding 89s — and won.

Add the factor of luck —
and you’ll be rewarded many times
for both courage and caution…
and punished for them at the same time 😂☹️



The only logical countermeasure to chaos in poker, in my opinion, is MEASURE.

You need measure in your mind.
Measure in caution.
Measure in courage.

Perhaps measure = balance —
the most beautiful quality in this world.
And unfortunately, one of the least developed in us throughout evolution.

To develop a sense of measure,
you need a huge baggage of mistakes and practice —
and constant work on yourself,
so this sense not only grows but also doesn’t degrade.

By nature, I’m a player who doesn’t like overestimating hand strength.
For me, a shove is AA, KK,
and sometimes, with big doubts, AKs and QQ.

Everything else is either careful play or a fold.

This leads to overfolding in cash games.
When I lose EV —
I lose patience.
My sense of measure degrades.

I start to:

not fold QQ on A-K boards

not fold sets and straights on flush boards

call 3-bets with any pocket pair 22–TT

make big reraises with AJ, KQ, and suited hands with strong kickers


That’s when I lose myself.
And turn into a loose player.


---

Here’s the conclusion I came to:

The game doesn’t teach what is right.
It teaches WHEN it is right.

That’s why poker is undeniably similar to life:
the same character traits
can be either strength or weakness —
depending on the SITUATION.

And perhaps the main skill in poker is not: courage,
discipline,
EQ or IQ,
or aggression.

But the ability to feel the EDGE.

To recognize the moment
when your STRENGTH turns into WEAKNESS,
and your ADVANTAGE turns into VULNERABILITY.

Wise minds of CC, help me untangle this chaos in my head.
Help me understand how to find balance!?

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Mazembe said:

I love this
That's why I love playing poker, because it's truly unpredictable, you have to accept to good and bad that comes with it

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bowserdon said:

Good advice

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Luvepoker said:

Well written and exactly why I luve this game. This game is so complicated and so dependent on who your against what they are doing and logical deduction it cant be mastered. Your Jacks hand is a good possible example. Yes you would have won but if you make the correct decision that's what counts. How many time have you seen someone make a bad call and when they win say I had a feeling it would hit. My question back to them is how many time did you call with that feeling and lost. They never answer that one.

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sibkaz said:

Yes) A sea of hopes, defeats, doubts, revelations...)) And we sail on the boat of experience )))

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Sos1l said:

Yes, feelings ruin you without logic and analysis.
The feeling that you should make a loose call with T7s or Q4s is nothing more than greed wanting money out of thin air, and boredom craving adrenaline.
Listening to those feelings is, in most cases, a losing decision.

I once had a hand after which I didn’t want to play for three days.

I was on the button with AQs.
I raised to 5BB.
The SB folded.
The BB (a fish) re-raised to 10BB — apparently he “felt” it would get there 😂
I called.

The flop came 5 T Q.
The BB c-bet 10BB again, I called.
Turn: 3.
The BB bet 15BB.

I thought: he could have trips, KK, or AA — but something felt off.
I still called.

River: 6.
Final board: 5 T Q 3 6.
The BB instantly shoved all-in.

I couldn’t fold.
I was thinking: two pair from the flop, a set, KK, AA — and of course, a bluff was also possible.
The BB showed 74 — he had a gutshot that hit on the river 😂

It felt like the BB and the RNG had secretly made a deal in advance just to ruin me 😂
I was furious 🤬

Did he “feel” it would get there?
Maybe.

Was his play reasonable and based on logic?
Of course not.
Does this style of play have a future?
A firm no.

Poker is a game where the RNG can forgive you many times —
but one day it will punish you suddenly and brutally.

As you said

Without strategy and discipline, there is no point in playing and thinking about +EV.

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