Roy Cooke has an article on narcissism and poker in the March 7 issue of Card Player magazine:
Do you play as well as your opponents, yet get much poorer results? If so, you probably focus too much on the times you're unlucky and forget the lucky times.
Do you blame bad luck for your disappointing results? Blaming bad luck is just plain stupid. Cards are random, and over the long term, you'll have approximately the same luck as everyone else.
Do you blame opponents' mistakes? Your opponents' bad play is not causing you to lose. It's just another way of avoiding responsibility.
Do you openly criticize other players? Narcissistic thinking causes you to put down other players as a means of elevating your own self-image.
Do you keep accurate records of your results? If not, ... you may not want to . . because you don't want to know the truth.
Do you study the poker literature? If not, you're almost certainly narcissistic because you think you already know more than the poker authorities. Nearly every top pro studies because they know that nobody knows it all.
Do you have a "poker buddy?" If you don't have one, you're indirectly saying that you don't want constructive criticism. We need another pair of eyes to examine our play and plug our leaks.
Roy Cook being a poker author and then charging that those who don't study poker writings are narcissists is ... well ... narcissistic.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was just golfers who were narcissists. Nice to hear we have lots of company!
ReplyDeleteHi Dave. So, you're thinking of moving?
ReplyDeleteAbout 9-10 years ago, we lived in Fort Lauderdale and thought about moving to central Florida. We got some info on The Villages and spent four nights there on one of those packages where you pay $400 or so but get that back in "money" to spend in their restaurants and stores.
We had a great time. But it was crowded and expensive and there were no HMO's available which we needed. The Villages sales office was located in Spanish Springs at that time. They had 75 sales people and it was a hard sell.
At any rate, we didn't go back. We moved 30 miles north of The Villages to Ocala which we liked much better as it was less jammed up and we did very well buying a house.
But we kept going back to The Villages to visit and eat and people-watch. It's always great fun to do that.
Then about 2 1/2 years ago when we decided to sell and go to a 55+ community, we went back and looked at a villa in The Villages - just outside of downtown Spanish Springs. We even put money down on it and then found out it was made of wood with a stucco coating. We also realized that the fees you pay in The Villages are very high! And you don't want a wooden house in Florida what with the hurricanes. So, we backed out of that and ended up with a much better deal in Stone Creek.
Today, The Villages has a certain dynamic and like I said, we like to visit but would not want to live there. It's way too crowded. About 80,000 people now and probably 35,000 houses and it's still growing. Golf carts are everywhere. Scary! Seriously! We've almost been run over several times by golf carts!
We are very happy here at Stone Creek. It's a gorgeous, gated community (The Villages, by the way, have gates, but they're really open to anyone!) and our amenities are superb. Right now there are about 900 homes and the build-out is supposed to be 4,000. It's very comfortable and the prices are right. I've been told that Stone Creek is one of the few communities in Marion County that is still building.
Ocala has so much more than The Villages what with our mall and our restaurants and stores (although much more has been built down there, too, in recent years). Supposedly you get free golf for life in The Villages but there are several catches. That's only on the small, executive courses. You must also pay cart fees to drive your own golf cart. Plus, the regular courses are very expensive and it is so jammed up that people can't get tee times. We have lots of people from The Villages play golf here at Stone Creek as they can't get on the course down there.
I'd suggest you visit The Villages. See if they still have the program where you can spend several days there for about $400. That way you'd get a much better feel. Who knows, you might like it a lot. There's much to do and both of the downtowns have a square where you can buy drinks, listen to live music and dance every night of the year, weather permitting.
If you have any other specific questions, let me know. Probably best if we continued this via email....
Best to you, too!