Aerial dogfighting and you

The ability to operate at a faster tempo or rhythm than an adversary enables one to fold the adversary back inside himself so that he can neither appreciate nor keep up with what is going on. He will become disoriented or confused, which suggests that unless such menacing pressure is relieved the adversary will experience various combintions of uncertainty, doubt, confusion, self-deception, indecision, fear, panic, discouragement, despair, etc., which will further:

-Disorient or twist his mental images or impressions of what is happening, thereby
-Disrupt his mental/physical maneuvers for dealing with such a menace, thereby
-Collapse his ability to carry on.
-John Boyd, "Strategic Game of ? and ?"

WESTERN SPRINGS, Ill. -- Despite the data for a table on Bodog last night, I stayed at one table, circling closer and closer around a fish that had built up an impressive stack and allowed me to see how he previously got PWNED with Q3 vs KQ.

I took his remaining two-buyin stack on two consecutive hands.

With a four-flush and gutshot, I decided to call on the turn when I added a pair as well. I hit the flush on the river and we went to war over his two pair, taking the first half of his stack.

The very next hand, I imagine, was as unbelievable to me as it was to him: I flopped the nut flush. I stacked his raggedy hand and he disappeared back to the ether.

Although it was a 6-max table, it had all the makings of a (very slow) heads-up bout. I've been pretty successful in heads-up matches of late and I was telling Gnome that it's a situation where I depend on feel more so than in six-max or full ring.

I used to compare it to being like a MLB pitcher. Get the batter used to what you're going to throw next and then do something different. That means check-calling and letting him bet when he thinks you have nothing; three-betting air when you know that your opponent is making moves on you; locking up your stack with the nuts when, like in the situations above, your toaster just knows you don't have it.

But the pitcher's analogy is only part of it. Ever hear of John Boyd?

He was a decorated fighter pilot-turned-military strategist. His strategies helped develop today's super-manueverable fighter planes and influence business today.

In short, he says what makes you a successful aerial dogfighter is your ability to process faster than your opponent, to lull him into thinking you're going to do something when you're going to do something different. And, as in poker, get him to be the one to make the fatal mistake.

It is the perfect way to look at how to be successful in today's games. Every street, from pre-flop to river, is like a language. Lull your opponent into believing that you're speaking the same tongue, betting when you are supposed to, folding when you're supposed to, raising when you're supposed to, and you're setting him up for disaster.

In short, you're able to speak his language because he's the obsolete one. You're making faster decisions than him, and am altering your attack and defense so he doesn't have a chance to adjust. And when he's befuddled, he's begging to speak your language to cope, like calling off all his chips against your nut flush.

I think of this when people say the games are too tough, or too tight. Maybe that's true at a certain level of play. But not on all of them. Maybe it's because your longswordmen are falling to my archers, your battleships are being hulled by my squadrons of carrier-based torpedo bombers, your premium pairs are falling to my RPGs.

Any competition for resources is really just a battle of change vs. being static and who will be able to adapt to the former and not succumb to being the latter.