Something I've been thinking about lately is how much I've been humbled by the people around me. It started when I first moved up to Dallas and joined an ultimate league in Allen. My friends had played in a league similar to this one and basically just dominated everyone. That's pretty much what I expected would happen. I'd walk onto the field, everyone would stop what they were doing, watch as I put on my cleats and just marvel at the way I threw the disc as I warmed up. "Is this Nick Molnar? In the flesh? The captain from Baylor? We're so blessed that God sent him here to humble us all! I look forward to him dominating me on the field!" Uhhhh not quite.
I got drafted to a team full of seasoned veterans who had been playing the game long before I even knew it was a sport. At first I was annoyed that people were trying to tell me, ME!, NICHOLAS MOLNAR, where to cut, when to cut, how to play defense etc, but after playing with them I let my guard down and realized they were way more knowledgeable than I am. As soon as I acted like a mature adult and decided that my best form of leadership would be by following, my game improved drastically. This eventually carried over to the Dallas Winter League I'm playing in now. I'm getting to play with a bunch of University of North Texas players and they're showing me offenses and defenses I've never even seen before! It's such an awesome experience. Now, let's shift gears. Try to keep up!
Everyone knows that my favorite poker player is...everybody say it at once, "Jason Somerville!" I feel like a hipster poker player. "He's really good...but you've probably never heard of him." His videos for poker vt, the poker training site I used to use, transformed me from a bad player to a pretty decent one with a strong grasp of the game. He completely shook up the way I viewed the game. I remember in one video he says something like, "Because of our chip stack, the stacks of the players in the blinds when we're Under the Gun, and the tables respect for an Under the Gun raise I feel like the best position to steal from would be Under the Gun." Woihjwiodhaiwoudhiuawh!?!?!?!?! What? You think the best position to steal the blinds from is...the weakest preflop position? You have my attention...
Anyways, he started a youtube series where he just plays online and talks about the hands as they're going on. It's pretty similar to what he does for poker vt except...free. I'd say about 90% of the time I can predict his actions (you can see his cards) but then there's that other 10% of the time...It's the paragraph about ultimate. It's so humbling listening to him talk and explain the game. It's light years ahead of where I am and so amazing to listen to.
All of this got me thinking: People watch youtube videos of JS playing poker...in fact they even pay for his videos on poker vt. People watch videos of Ultimate Frisbee on youtube. There are magazines, websites, and clinics dedicated to improving your ultimate frisbee game. Will anyone ever pay me for something like that? Will I ever be so amazing at something, that they'll say, "Yes, I will pay Nick Molnar just to listen to him talk about xyz." I feel like the answer is no, and that makes me kind of sad. I learned poker via videos from a guy who now has a World Series of Poker Bracelet, and Ultimate from a handful of players who have played on national level teams. What do I have to offer? Well...I've played a lot of poker...but if there's one thing I've learned from old people in the casinos, it's that just because you've been doing something for a long time, doesn't mean you've been doing it well. Oh well. That's all for now. A couple of weeks ago, I told Wes this would be the next video at the end of my blog. I'm a man of my word:
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