Muddy Road

Muddy Road

What follows may be the single most important piece of poker wisdom I've ever encountered. It originates with Tanzan, a 19th century Japanese Buddhist monk and professor of philosophy at the Imperial University, and it comes down to us today in the form of this Zen story or koan.

Tanzan and Ekido were walking together down a muddy road in the rain. Coming around a bend in the road, they arrived at a small, swift stream, where a lovely young girl in full dress kimono stood crying.

"Why are you crying?" asked Tanzan.

In between tears, the girl explained that she was due at a wedding in a village on the far side of the stream, but to cross the stream meant to ruin her kimono and, needless to say, her entrance.

"Come on, girl," said Tanzan. With that, he hoisted the girl on his back, waded across the stream and deposited her on the far side, high, dry and happy. She went off to the wedding, there presumably to catch the bouquet and/or get drunk. Tanzan and Ekido continued on down the road.

Ekido held his tongue until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he could no longer restrain himself. "We monks don't go near women," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It's dangerous and our order forbids it. Yet you carried that girl across the stream. Why did you carry that girl?"

"I left the girl at the stream," replied Tanzan. "Why do you carry her still?"

This koan teaches us the vital poker strategy of letting go. When bad luck or bad beats happen, we face a critical choice: We can hold on to the bad feelings that those outcomes engender, or we can just... move... on. Tanzan tells us that we must move on. If we cling to bad feelings, we must necessarily skew our perception, degrade our decision-making, and move away from perfect play.

You flop top pair, top kicker and drive hard against a solo opponent, who hits a two-outer to beat you. You commence to harangue your foe, ruining your peace, your patience and your performance.

Put the girl down!

After hours of dreary jackthrees, you flop a set, only to be run down by set-over-set, setting you up for an all-night pity party.

Why do you carry her still?

Look, everyone encounters bad outcomes, and everyone feels bad feelings. Smart, self-aware players acknowledge those feelings and carry on. Weak players, players enslaved to their emotions, never let go, and they pay and pay and pay the price for this emotional addiction.

I'm going to give you some advice, and, really, I recommend that you take it: Cut out the koan of the muddy road. Stick it in your wallet. Keep it with you and re-read it frequently until you memorize it. Use it as a defense against your own bad attitude. Tanzan left that girl at the river. Why do you carry her still?