For the Love of the Game

When you get a second chance at the ability to live life how you wanted, should you care that your soon-to-be two year old decided to ship her perfectly crafted spare ribs air mail at the freshly painted wall giving it the Jackson Pollock treatment? Or that the wife maybe dropped one too many hints about everyday going ons this week, straddling the line between helpful and total bitch?

I’ve looked at the little things that used to “destroy” week and brood over them like they were ending my marriage, sending me to live under a bridge and wash people’s windshields for enough money to buy a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger. Granted, I still get a kick out of complaining about bad service at a Starbucks or how infinitely annoying the full, headbanging volume of the Verizon Wireless sign off jingle is on my cell phone. Or go into detail why some people should not be allowed to breed as a sign of my discontent over their inability to use a copier, causing delay in my very important TPS report printing and hot chocolate drinking.

The reason I started this blog was for my love of cards, particularly poker. A long losing streak has left me wondering if I should turn this page into simple rants about everyday life or continue plunging forward with every Aces cracked. Granted, my posts are mostly about my kids and how the backyard needs some serious green thumb intervention, but I do like to discuss poker at length still just not with the passion of trading hand histories or the actual cards involved with a hand. Instead, I’d rather know how someone dealt with barely making into the money in their last five tourneys, what did you do with the money after that big score, or how did you manage to even log on after coming one card from getting a Battle of the Blogger Tournament TOC seat?

Those are type of questions I’m interested in, not how to play 89s UTG with a field of aggressive players ahead. The cards play themselves with minor tweaking for check-raising and floating, if you get Aces and someone else is lucky enough to have Kings, you’ll win 80% of the time. Simple math, not the Full Tilt Random Number Generator, but simple math caused that four flush to come out causing you to question once again why you play this stupid game.

But, you the player know why you play and come back to the table after months and months of “beats”. It’s not the same drive for everyone, but your reason is your own, and no one else’s.

Hold on to that, and you’ll see why those imaginary internet friends come in handy as they spin tales in their own voice about those home games, big wins, and for the brave ones how they lose.