My recent dalliance with omaha has led me to do some thinking about what exactly I was trying to achieve with my poker and what my motivation was for playing. Am I playing just for the money? Is it just to satisfy my competitive streak? Or is it a purely social thing? I think the answer is all of the above. Its great to have a hobby which unlike, say, binge drinking, gives me a chance of recovering my outlay or even make a profit, as happened through 2007. I"ve come to the conclusion that the form of poker I find most satisfying for a number of reasons is no-limit texas hold"em tournaments. I"ve always had a thing about playing tournaments with a structure which allows for imagination and original thinking to be used, as my competitive side gives me satisfaction from outplaying opponents rather than being luckier than they are. What I"ve now decided is that I should never play any tournament unless I know I have at least 4 to 5 hours to spare. Of course there are plenty of occasions when this won"t be feasible, so rather than play turbo tournaments or sit and gos, pot-limit omaha cash games suit me nicely.
A regular theme of my ramblings over the last few weeks is how badly I take defeat. Whether its a bad beat or incompetent play on my part, my exit from a significant proportion of the tournaments I play is the cue for all my toys to be thrown from the pram. I"ve had a couple of conversations this week which have struck a chord. A couple of days ago someone asked me "What scares you?". My instinctive response was "Approaching 40, living alone in a 1 bedroom flat and working in a call centre". A little later, the same person asked whether I thought I saw playing poker as my lottery ticket out of this. Instantly, the latter comment struck a chord and perhaps, gave me an answer as to why I sometimes take things way too seriously. One of my earliest entries in this blog mentioned how I spend time daydreaming about being interviewed on ESPN after collecting my gold bracelet. Put this together with my conversations this week and the answer is there; every time I enter a tournament of any description, rather than just enjoying it for what it is, i"ve seen it as the start of the process which will lead me the big house in the country, the flash car and the limitless, spur of the moment, trips to far-flung places. Defeat means a return to planet earth and getting up again the next day to answer questions about what time the local waste tip opens.
I"m not saying I"ll never again type "FFS" or have a whinge but things seem a little clearer now. If anyone reading this ever encounters me, either online or live, whining, you have my permission to tell me to grow up and stop being a prat. One of my favourite songs is "Knock me down" by the Red Hot Chilli peppers which was written about the drug-caused death of their first guitarist. Despite the real meaning of the song, the chorus seems to reinforce some of my recent lessons "If you see me getting by, if you see me getting high, knock me down, I"m not bigger than life"
