In the sordid "straw poll" that is my life, I have found virtually everyone's response to Barry Greenstein's book, Ace on the River, almost identical: readers were left unfulfilled. However, there are two distinct reasons for this feeling of emptiness.

One camp was apoplectic that he hardly spent any time on starting hands. Not only that, but there wasn't a single prop bet story that ended up with anyone fighting Thai women or with anyone else name tattooed on their nether regions. They kept skimming chapters looking for a "how to play poker" section...a road map. Eventually, they tossed the book away in favor of an issue of All-In magazine or Daniel Negraneu's purely topical treatise. These are the people you see in the $1 SnGs dreaming of running that non-existent bankroll back up to the $50 they started with, the observers popping into the higher buy-in tourneys online begging for that extra $6 so they can prove to the "donkey" that busted them who has seen more episodes of High Stakes Poker, or worst of all, the 20-somethings with I-pods in their ears, Oakleys perched on their noses and a "No Fear" card protector at the $2-$4 games.

These are not poker players. These are degenerate gamblers...or fad chasers...or idol worshipers. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not tapping the tank, deriding these "poisson" so that they run away to something more "now" like the housewife staple: Bunko. No. I'm just outlining that I do not intend to write this blog for these people. And if that keeps my readership at one or two, I am fine with that.

When a person overcomes stigma and convention and visits a psychologist...whether for depression or anxiety or a sex addiction...a therapist will not tell you how to live your life. They will arm you with tools, with thought processes, with an approach that will help make you successful. They will not say, "Hypothetically speaking, if the government were to ever so invade your private life that, against the advice of every other country on earth, they take away your right to enjoy your favorite, legal, past time and tie up thousands of dollars in red tape...I want you to act like this." That doesn't happen. People don't expect it.

But so many people are looking for the silver bullet to make them a winning poker player. If only they play pocket 10s a certain way, they will go from a kitchen table to the final table. A book, a blog, a conversation with David Benyamine on Full Tilt while he's trying to earn a living...none of these are going to provide the answers to making you a winning player. That responsibility lies within each person's psyche. You take the information you get from the books, from the blogs, from David, from hours playing online with a baby in one arm and the mouse in the other...you put that information into the prism that is your psychological approach to the game. And depending on the maturity and development of that prism, your poker play will either be a refined, solid product or a distorted and destructive by-product.

Just to clarify...in no means am I comparing myself to Barry Greenstein. Or a board-certified psychologist. I am simply indicating my belief in the importance of perspective and the mental approach to the game of poker. Perhaps this is because I was forced to face the importance of the aforementioned in my real life. I just hope that through these babbling posts and putting my words and thoughts on paper, I will be able to overcome tilt and destructive sessions as I am working to overcome the same at work and at home.

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Tonight is Sunday...and thanks to my successful attempt in my very first token frenzy, I'll be playing in the Big Game tonight. I hope to see everyone there...these blogger events have brought me tremendous enjoyment and serve as constant reminders of how far I have to go to elevate my game.

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The Blue Grass and the Arkansas Derby have done NOTHING to clear up the Derby picture. Wow. Didn't I say that last week after the Wood and the Santa Anita Derby? Polytrack has forever changed the importance of these preps and the unconventional routes being taken by trainers these days has made the Derby more of a guessing game than it ever was. Will we ever see two contenders race against each other on dirt, at a legitimate distance, on dry conditions ever again? I hope not. It's what makes this game fun.