Greg Norman...Jean Van de Velde...Wippy1313

I have a love/hate relationship with Golden Tee.

I love Golden Tee, the machine. I love that I can now use my credit card instead of interminably feeding $1 bills into a finicky machine when I could be saving them for Destiny or Sugar or Victoria. I love that I can waste money on different clubs and different balls that have no impact whatsoever on my game. It's so true to life.

I love Golden Tee, the machine. I hate Golden Tee the game. I'm not too bad at the game. Decent "handicap" ... can hook and shape the ball with the best of them. The calluses on my swing hand are strong enough from a variety of activities that I don't get many of the dreaded GT injuries. My problem? I am ALWAYS good for one disasterous hole. If there is a hole where you can be completely in jail and mark up the 10, I'll do it. It doesn't matter how hard I try to play smart golf, fairways and greens, I will end up in some crevace that will cost me $5 or $10 to the lucky stiff playing me heads-up.

And to make matters worse, I KNOW this about myself and I am constantly WAITING for this hole. It's in my head on every tee. "Is this the hole?" I am never as aggressive as I should be because I'm afraid of that hole. And yet invariably, I'll be on hole 13 or 14, playing well, usually leading and I will start to get a little cocky. I start to try to clear some trees I know full well I can't clear with a 3-wood. And I end up picking pine needles out of my teeth, marking double-digits on the scorecard.

What's the point in relating this short-coming of mine? It extends to my poker game as well. Last night I was in a 30-person MTT. A WIDE range of skill levels. For example, one guy has played in a few WSOP events and one guy flipped three diamonds and two hearts and declared he had a flush because they were all red. ALL skill levels. It makes for interesting table changes. That's for sure.

This is usually a re-buy tournament, but last night we bumped the buy-in and the freeze out was on. With a flat blind structure, I appropriately played tight early and hit the first break about average in chips. Following hitting a few flops pretty hard, I almost doubled-up and I began thinking about the final table. There were two short stacks at my table that had been nursing them rather tightly and we were all looking for opportunities to take advantage.

One of them was directly to my left and in this particular hand, he was in the BB. He had about T5,000 with blinds at 300/600. The action was folded around to me and I looked at 4c5c. I raised to T1,500 figuring was was all-in or folding. He called. Ummm...okay. Flop came A-J-3 rainbow. I checked. Mistake #1. Well, mistake number one was probably being in the hand at all for a "min" raise...but let's just say this is mistake #1 to make me feel better. He checks behind. The turn is a 4. I pair-up, but not exactly a powerhouse. I check again. He splashes $1,200 in the pot. Being a somewhat inexperienced and weak player, I thought he was just trying to take it down. How could a 4 have helped him and if it did, why that bet? So I called.

River was a 9. No help. But if he did have a four, this was an over. I ask for a chip count and put him all-in for his last $2,300. As tight and weak as he had been playing, I expected it to be an easy fold. But without much hesitation, he calls. And flips A-2. His betting patterns make ZERO sense, but what POSSIBLE reason did I have to play this and the way I did? Just like Golden Tee, I was sailing along, doing relatively well, thought I could just get this guy to bend to my will and next thing I know, my tournament chances were dashed.

Made the final table, but finished eighth. If I routinely donked off my chips or one bad beat after another or whatever, that's one thing. But to play good poker for 2.5-3 hours and routinely waste it all with one bad hand. Is this just a lack of concentration? Is it a psychological flaw? Does anyone else experience this? Have any thoughts? More importantly...anyone have any singles? I have a date with Destiny.

Nostradamus-like Prophecy...

Self-knowledge is a scary thing. You never want to be blinded by your self-image so that you cannot adequately "Know Thy Self."

But sometimes knowing yourself too well can be even more painful.

Due to familial obligations, I was unable to grab a token for last night's MATH on Full Tilt. So thanks to my PLO winnings from the weekend, I went ahead and bought-in...something that physically pains me. I LOOOOOVVVEEEE to satellite. I won't break out into Dave Matthews here no matter how much I may want to.

I went into the tournament knowing full well it was going to be a disaster in some way shape or form. Mentally, I was not prepared to play. I was allowing my ego to get the best of me and even though it means NOTHING, I was playing for points in the Battle of the Bloggers.

That invariably leads to disaster. But I held my own through the first few levels, maintaining a relatively static chip count (as is my Modus Operandi). Sensed weakness in one button raise and re-raised with nothing...maxed out at around $3,600 chips. Made it through the first level and promptly tightened up more than A-Rod's A-Hole in the playoffs. I was getting blinded to death (as is my Modus Operandi) when I got KcQc in middle position. I had been playing rather tightly and when the action was folded to me, I raised 3.5xBB. All folded to Joe Speaker in the big blind. He had a healthy stack of chips and popped me. I thought for a minute, but as I had a small stack by this point, I figured he was trying to bully me...or if not, hopefully I had two live cards with straight and flush possibilities. I thought maybe a middle pocket pair...and pushed all-in.

He insta-called and flipped A-K. Doh.

The flop came A-J-x with two clubs. Straight possibilities, flush possibilities...TONS of outs. Soemone even said they smelled a suck-out. Alas...it was not to be. The ironic part of this sad, pathetic tale is the end of my blog posted yesterday. Scroll down. I'll wait.

"But these darned bloggers are too well-versed in the re-raise and my enormous ego is terrified I might have to lay down that KdQd or worse yet...call with it."

See it? Yeah...so I had the suit wrong. Kill me.

Gravedigger...when you dig my grave...won't you make it shallow. So that I can feel the rain?

Couldn't resist Dave that time around.

Thank you Shamus...

As a wide-eyed newbie to the world of poker bloggers, I am frolicking from site to site, adding multiple sites to my trusty google reader. Some I keep for days...some for mere hours. One can only stare at so many screenshots of bad beats before they all start to run together. I have found that I can pick up little "nuggets" from almost everyone, however...even if it's a not so subtle reminder of what NOT to do.

But in the last week, one of the most helpful blogs I've run across is "Hard Boiled Poker" by Short-Stacked Shamus. His approach is intelligent, varied and most importantly he understands that poker and NL HE are not exactly synonymous and all encompassing.

One of the most difficult aspects for my taking poker seriously is the lack of discernible results, especially in cash games. Somewhere a highly paid shrink will say this has "something" to do with my perfectionism. But I digress... I played basketball in high school. If I scored over 20 points and/or the team won, I considered it a successful outing. In poker, outside of a tournament victory, how do you measure success? How do you walk away from the table feeling that you played your best?

Many people consider outcomes/profit to be the barometer. But that is flawed in so many ways. Pure variance/probability will dictate that you can play the best poker in the history of this horrible, neh wonderful game and still finish down for a session or a month's worth of sessions. And conversely, as we're all too painfully aware, the biggest donk in the history of equidae can come out ahead in the short-term.

So if money can't be used...and you sit down at a .25/.50 PLO table...what can be used to measure success? Mentally, over the past year or so, I have told myself that if I could walk away from the table feeling like I "out-played" those during my session, then it would be some sort of ephemeral victory. Sure...maybe I bluffed at a $10 pot with my last $8 to my Full Tilt name...but by taking the chance, I outplayed that guy who called with the runner-runner but flush to felt me. And conversely, if I played spandex-tight poker and just took advantage of those willing to risk their stack with TPTK in a nine-handed Omaha game, I was somehow stooping to their level.

What a destructive and bankroll killing line of thought when you're a self-avowed low-limit player who's more worried about paying for the next pack of Huggies Pull-ups than the next "Bracelet Race." And for some reason, it took reading Shamus' blog about low-limit PLO and just overplaying the nuts to make me come to this seemingly brutally obvious conclusion. So Sunday, I sat down for two short sessions at .25/.50 PLO...waited for what I felt were the nuts...and ended up with a $150 profit for the day thanks to those who were just SURE that middle and bottom two-pair were good on the flop. Did I outplay them? Not necessarily. Did the $150 prove that I'm a better player? Nope. But does it allow me to keep playing the game that I love without wrapping my three-month-old in an old OSU t-shirt to avoid paying for diapers? You better believe it.

*******

The Big Game last night was highly enjoyable, entertaining and predictably mediocre in terms of my participation. As I have in virtually every blogger event, I held my own, got points and bled myself dry somewhere around the middle of the pack. I would like to blame the cards...I would like to blame the Layer Cake Shiraz...I would like to blame the Sopranos...

But in reality, I am just playing too darned tight in the second stage of these tournaments. I'm not talking about blind steals, but I need to trust my post-flop play and see a few more flops. In larger MTTs, I know I can count on a 3xBB raise to perhaps not thin the field as much as I hoped, but does ensure I can set the cost of seeing the flop. Or fold to the all-in. But these darned bloggers are too well-versed in the re-raise and my enormous ego is terrified I might have to lay down that KdQd or worse yet...call with it.

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.

*********

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.

*********
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.

Epiphany...Maybe more...

There are seminal events in everyone's life that forever alter their path in life. The first time you see a naked woman...do you stare at her breasts, mumble to yourself and deposit the memory in your "Spank Bank" to use at various points in a dark room full of excess tissues? Or...do you look at her hair and comment on the product used to add body? This event will forever set your path. When you watch your first Yankees game...do you vomit out of respect and awe or do you vomit out of hatred and disgust? You're gay or you're not. You're a Yankee fan or you're not. And you're a typical poker/horse racing blogger or you're not.

I'm not.

I was reading some of the blogs on the right side of my page last night while playing in a token frenzy on FT (where I acquired my first $75 token in my virgin career). And it hit me. I don't want to learn how to use Poker X Factor. I don't want to post results of my poor cash game results or my 45th place finish in a $5 PLO tourney on FT that pays top 43. And I'm not entirely sure anyone wants to read it.

My high school english teacher, Mrs. McDonald, was so senile that we used to talk during tests and trade papers to fill out pre-determined sections. Her class didn't teach me much. Except organization and planning. But one thing she did repeat over and over again is to write what you know and you care about.

And then it hit me...I don't care about hand analysis of my $1 SnGs, but I do care about poker politics. I care about the PPA, the UIGEA, state poker politics and the future of online and live poker. And I will use this space to call on everyone to both join and become active in the PPA.

I also care about the psychology of poker. Not in a Dr. Phil way. He's a douchebag. But, I am not embarrassed to admit that I am going through a period of change in my life and a period of great self-evaluation. And I find that it's not only helping my life, but my poker game. And in the future, I will utilize this space to share my thoughts and my journey in hopes that I will not only care about what I'm writing, but that someone will want to read it.

See everyone in the Mookie tonight.

Breaking Every Cardinal Rule...

I am a public relations professional and as one of the few in my firm under the age of 55, I try to serve as the resident technological expert in the firm (and yes, sadly this includes "IT"). As such, I am the one called in to explain any blog recommendations we might have. I tell my clients that there are two rules to blogs that simply cannot be broken:

1. You must post frequently...every day if possible.

2. You must be interesting and actually blog about something people want to read.
My friends, so far I have admittedly broken BOTH of these rules with this blog. I beg the patience of anyone bored anough to actually read this.

Since I am currently watching the two munchkins and trying to weasel time to watch the Wood and the Masters later today, I'll quickly jot down a few thoughts from the last five days:

-- It's simple. Florida made their shots. Ohio State didn't. The Buckeyes did not get "outplayed" ... they didn't make their shots. This is not up for debate.

-- I've played in my first two blogger tournaments. I have a long way to go.

-- Shockingly enough, I earned points in the Riverchasers event. Yes, Hilary Swank...THAT is a miracle.

-- Austin, TX makes me feel really old and really ugly.

-- While in Austin on business, I was there at the same time a poker bill was being heard before the legislature. I bring this up because I will routinely beg both of you reading this blog to join the PPA.

-- I haven't cashed in a MTT in a LONG time. In reviewing my game, I think I am being too aggressive early in tournaments, playing too many pots and not being smart enough to lay hands down. Yeah. I have a long way to go.

-- In the Wood today, I like Summer Doldrums. I think Nobiz will race well and may win, but is chalky. Pletcher is just using the Wood as an opportunity to get earnings for Any Given Saturday. He will not be disappointed by a second or third place finish.

-- The Santa Anita Derby is just as weak as everyone thinks, but is too afraid to admit.

Halftime of championship game...

I am writing this at halftime so nobody says this is sour grapes. As a former basketball player, NCAA officiating is an abomination. I say this after watching the first half and I say it on both sides of the ball. The first foul on Conley was ridiculous. The foul on Richard was atrocious. Neither foul on Hunter would have been a foul in any other league anywhere on the planet. And yet Oden comes over the top of Brewer and mugs him, gets SOME ball and that is allowed for the “One Shining Moment” montage at the end. Speaking of which…ITunes is selling those things for $1.99 an episode? They’re three minutes of complete sap that are available all over the internet. Anyone dumb enough/effeminate enough to buy one of those things should get a lifetime ban from ESPN.

I can only hope the second half is more basketball and less figure skating. No offense “Blades of Glory.”