Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Motion Sickness

Poker tables are full of hacks. People making crazy moves. Moves that may or may not actually apply to the given hand. It's kind of like these players have learned how to do the Heimlech maneuver and desperately want to test it out, but no one happens to be choking at the moment.

Imagine you're sitting at a poker table feeling nausea. All of a sudden another player makes a bad read and misinterprets the situation to be that you're choking to death. So they run up behind you, wrap their arms around your chest, and start pumping.

Talk about awkward...

What this other player doesn't understand is that even if the Heimlech maneuver somehow alleviates the nausea on this particular hand, it still doesn't mean it was a positive expected value move in the long run.

Watching people like this play poker can be highly entertaining. Unless you're the person in the hand who got unlucky. Then their play might make you sick.

Most doctors and medical experts say that nausea and choking are two of the symptoms to look out for. If you've experienced either of these discomforts at the poker table, there's a good chance you outplayed your opponent but still got sucked out on.

Which is one of the major reasons why I never play poker on a boat.

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