Posted by Dr Fro 1:51 PM
The street heats the urgency of sound. As you see there's no-one around..

I spend a lot of time sleeping on airplanes. I also spend a lot of time sleeping in my own bed. Sometimes, I over-serve myself with Scottish malt whisky and doze off on the sofa. I've been known to fall asleep with my eyes open while at work.

When I was 18, approximately 99% of my thoughts while dozing off surrounded sex. Now I am 32. With rare exception, I spend all of my dozing moments thinking about poker. When I was 18, I never fantasized about getting turned down by Holly Davis. At 32, I don't dream about losing big hands.

In my dreams, I am one helluva poker player. My big wins typically take place in a huge cash game. For reasons that are not clear, they always take place in front of a large crowd, all of which are cheering for me. The baby-killing, puppy kicking, Jesus-hating Communist that loses to me has no friends in the bleachers surrounding our game.

My great dream moments are, in a very MTV-like fashion, accompanied by a great soundtrack. There was the time that my full house beat an ace-high flush and Rage Against the Machine's "I'm Housin'!" came over the speakers. The chorus came around as I verbally declared my hand. The crowd was very impressed. I high fived all of my friends and went home with a stripper.

I have had great dream moments in tournaments where I made an all-in bet while holding the nuts on the river. Franz Ferdinand started playing. Again, my actions were synchronized with the lyrics. I started taunting my doomed opponent with the lyrics "Take me out" to induce a call. He called and I decided to hesitate for dramatic effect before singing "I won't be leaving here...I won't be leaving here...WITH YOU". I showed my hands and it was all high fives and praise for my bravado. I stood on the table and announce to all that I am the most ass-kicking dude in the universe and they all agreed. Just to prove it, I jumped at my opponent (ala the first episode of Tilt) and beat the turd out of him. "Nothing but the finest meats and cheeses in all the land for my men."

But I always wake up to find that the real world has little in common with my dream world. No high fives, strippers, soundtracks, meats, cheeses or applause. As a matter of fact, each big win is usually followed by a low growl by all opponents. The insincerity in the rare "nice hand" is palpable. In many pursuits in life, you receive a lot of positive feedback for doing well. At work, you may get a raise, bonus or promotion. In bowling, a high five is standard for all strikes and spares. Paint a nice painting and somebody is bound to tell you "good work". In poker, your only reward is money. Since teaming is against the rules, all other players at the table are by definition rooting against you. It is a zero net sum game, so every dollar you take home is a dollar they don't. The players may be very nice people, but they don't want you to win.

This partially explains why poker has always drawn more than its fair share of loners and freaks. People that are used to positive reinforcement for a job well done can't enjoy poker. People that have always disengaged themselves from the rest of society aren't discouraged by the lack of positive reinforcement; they go their whole life without it and don't notice when it is missing.

I am not talking about the friendly poker game on Thursday night with your work friends. When the objective is more social than competitive, there will be plenty of positive social interaction. But the more serious poker game leaves you with two options - 1) lose or 2) win and have all the people you just spent the last 5 hours with wishing you hadn't won (in other words, resenting your success). This seems like a Catch-22 to me.

So, what to do about this conundrum? Nothing really. I enjoy poker and I love making money at it. I get in plenty social games, too, and the competitive games don't bring me down. It would be nice if they were more like my dreams, but I will take them as they are. I guess that makes me a freak or loner. I prefer freak.

1 Comment(s):

Posted by  Junelli, at 4:11 PM, June 02, 2005  

Great post.

A freak maybe.
A loner probably not.
A degenerate, definitely.

I've hated you everytime we've played!!

__________________________________________________

Post a Comment