Poker is a fun game to play. I mean, I'm terrible at it, and do not often win money, but I really enjoy playing it.
I remember seeing some youtube video about "Poker teaching life skills." I thought hey thats funny, but sadly true, a perfect poker player would make a good salesman, assuming they weren't completely addicted to gambling and sports betting (a reality for pro poker players), they know when to apply pressure to get more money out of a situation, they know when they are beat, they know when the person is disgusted or in love with the price. Useful isnt it?
Whats this got to do with frisbee?
Well for starters, after playing poker a lot of the game is playing off the player, laying down bottom pair against an all in raise doesn't take a lot of skill, but to be able to fold a full house to a higher full house takes some skill.
One thing since playing poker, is that I watch people a lot more, and try to understand what they're thinking when they're playing, from the way they sit, fidget, look and talk.
It works in frisbee too. I mean I know good players can anticipate cuts, but I've never properly been able to do this so the first time I did was a really good experience.
One of my happy memories from the Youth Training camp marking a player near the endzone. He faked one way, and then ran the other, I didn't bite on the first fake, and on the run, I didn't follow him but just run straight to the spot I knew he wanted. I didn't think about it this time, and I stopped the cut as he stood there with no where to go.
Not very special sounding, but for it me it was the first time I'd ever done something like this. I'd played enough with him to know which was a fake and which one was his real move, and when he did I knew where he wanted to go before he started moving becuase I was able to think from his perspective about it.
Not very advanced, but still a special moment for me... it should have happened sooner.
I'm going to focus on making this part of my D game.
It also means less running which I love!!
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2 comments:
Being quite the slowpoke myself, I totally find myself relating to what you've said. Usually I'm marking the dump, and when the O is about to resume from a stoppage, probably 9 times out of 10 they're looking right at the area they are going to cut to. Instead of standing in that area, I stand off a bit, baiting them into running exactly where I know they're going to run.
Loving this blog, lads.
just been reading thru the blog. nice work.
i can relate to reading the players. this is my 2nd favourite thing after zone offence. as Simon says (ha!) it is often noticeable with the dump, since the thrower locks onto their dump. i get satisfaction out of "causing" stalls.
the next stage after you have got comfortable reading your player is reading others at the same time, e.g. poaching off your player who is twiddling their thumbs, interfering with another cut, then returning to your player. Or reading the thrower and heading deep to help block hucks the instant you know the thrower has committed to throwing it.
I bait some dump cuts with a play I coincidentally call "Tiger" (in my post on guarding the dump).
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