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Tim Tebow Told Me Toby dtools22 | Published May 15, 2012 
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I’ve been getting shelled the past couple of weeks at the table, plain and simple. Since starting back up on the grind this is probably the worst stretch I’ve gone through. Times like these it gets hard to keep your head up and keep going. I know your told when you get into this business that you need to handle the swings and you’re not always going to get the best of it day in and day out. I understand that fact, however it’s still possible to feel like shit when it happens to you. I’m human, no matter how hard I try to get rid of that particular limitation it will always be there. It’s something none of us can ever transcend and as human beings we are ultimately emotional creatures. Some of us, like me, are certainly more emotional than others and we need to find inspiration and motivation when we get kicked in the balls. Enter stage right, Tim Tebow.
I was sitting around thumbing through the channels on my TV when I saw ESPN’s Year of the Quarterback special. The episode that was on at that time was of Time Tebow and his path from the end of college to draft night in the NFL. Personally I’m a fan of the guy. I was a fan of his while he was playing for the Gators, I like him in the NFL, yeah he’s clunky throwing the rock but I root for him all the same. During this special it showed all of the workouts that Tebow did leading up to the combine and the NFL draft. Insanity would be a good word for it. Take out your opinions of the man and just watch what was going on, watch this man chasing a dream that everyone is saying he can never get. He is busting his ass as hard as possible just for a chance to prove himself on the next level. He’s guaranteed nothing despite having won all of the awards and accolades in college that he did. I just saw a glimpse of a man that wouldn’t let someone else take his dream away from him. Like him or not, you can respect that about him.
In the piece Tim said something that I thought was rather profound. When asked about his training workouts he said, “At the end of the day, was I the hardest working player in the country today and did I get better? If the answer’s yes then it was a good day.” Simple idea, a little cliché, but the point is still very valid. Watching this coming off of a session where I got my ass kicked, I wondered if I could honestly say the same about myself. Could I claim that I did everything I could to get better at the table that day? Was I the hardest working playing in the country today? It’s a tough question to ask yourself, because often the answer is going to be no. No, you lost your cool a little bit and opened up your calling range after taking that big beat. No, you splashed around a little too much after you got tired of folding for the past 4 dealers. No, you made that crying call when you were certain you were beat.
I’ve been carrying that thought with me since my channel surfing lead me to Time Tebow smashing tractor tires with sledgehammers and working out from 7AM to 7PM on a daily basis. For the majority of my personal history I can’t say I was the hardest working player, student, son, brother, boyfriend, or any other demographic that I’ve fit in at one point during my 24 years on this planet. That thought bothers me a great deal. I feel like I’ve wasted a lot of great opportunities in this life and I don’t want to add poker to that list. Win, lose, or draw I just want to say that I was the hardest working playing in the country each and every day that I’m out on the felt or studying the game in my off days. We as players can’t totally control our fate, the turn of a card can still corrupt even our best sessions. All we can do is bust our asses to get better, so that’s what I’m going to do.
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Comments
trentbridge
1 year ago
I don't think "hard-working" applies to playing poker. In most sports, the athlete gets better by turning trained behavior into instinctive muscle memory. A golf swing or baseball swing are obvious examples. In one sense, playing poker by instinct - i.e. without conscious thought - is exactly the wrong approach. My biggest failing as a poker player is to not take twenty seconds to mentally recap the action so far before calling, raising, or shoving. All my opponent's actions are clues as to his hand but I short-circuit my thinking, quickly put him on a hand that I beat and pay the consequences. For example, I'm holding AJ. Flop comes J,7,4. Great - top pair, top kicker. I bet, villain calls. Turn, same action - I bet, he calls. I push out my river bet - thinking he must know I have top pair, top kicker? Do I stop and wonder about QQ, or KK? I should. No, I tell myself he has KJ and watch the pile of chips disappear in his direction. The one thing you have in poker is time - it doesn't have to be a split-second decision. Watching the final table of the 2012 WSOP ME made me appreciate how deliberate the players were.
trentbridge
1 year ago
I don't think "hard-working" applies to playing poker. In most sports, the athlete gets better by turning trained behavior into instinctive muscle memory. A golf swing or baseball swing are obvious examples. In one sense, playing poker by instinct - i.e. without conscious thought - is exactly the wrong approach. My biggest failing as a poker player is to not take twenty seconds to mentally recap the action so far before calling, raising, or shoving. All my opponent's actions are clues but I short-circuit my thinking, quickly put him on a hand that I beat and pay the consequences. For example, I'm holding AJ. Flop comes J,7,4. Great top pair, top kicker. I bet, he calls. A 2 comes on the turn, same action - I bet and he calls. Why is he calling? He must know I have top pair, top kicker? Do I stop and consider that he has trips, or two pairs or QQ, or KK? I should. No, I tell myself he has KJ and watch the pile of chips disappear in his direction. The one thing you have in poker is time - it doesn't have to be a split-second decision. Watching the final table of the 2012 WSOP ME made me appreciate how deliberate the players were.
WPS22
1 year ago
Trent- What does working hard have to do with taking an extra minute to think a hand over?
Putting in hard work in poker consists of countless hours of playing, studying, self evaluation, discussions w/ other players. It's looking over thousands of hands a day, plugging ranges into poker stove for hours to drill the odds of hundreds of different likely scenarios into your head.
Doing these things doesn't preclude you from taking extra time to think a hand over. It just makes that extra time that you are thinking the hand over much more valuable because you are much more prepared than the average player.
I promise that those deliberate players you saw playing the ME FT last year all have worked extremely hard at their game. Hard work exists in poker and is just as important as it is anywhere else.
dtools22
1 year ago
@Trent I agree 100%. The only difference is I would consider taking that extra 20 seconds to think about the hand an example of the "hard work" that I'm talking about. For me, there are a few attributes of playing that I need to work on specifically. Being more observant at the tables and developing a player profile of my opponents in game would be an example. I think it's very easy to get caught up in auto-pilot mode, and it takes a lot of hard work to fight that urge to just play poker in a vacuum and really think about what your opponents are doing.
@WPS22 This is the other side of it I'm also really trying to work on. I call it having "film session" away from the tables (used to do such extra-curricular work for football). Trying to pinpoint not just which play is best, but why it's best. Figure out how each player is approaching the game and what are the best ways to attack that player on the felt.