What Do You Do When The Loser Wins?
I went and played poker tonight. It wasn’t that big a deal. I played to even, more or less in our normal limit game, which constitutes the majority of my poker playing. As long as you come out even, or a little ahead, it’s all good. You just don’t want to lose money. Normally, I try to make a little extra bank in the limit game to finance the no-limit game we play sometimes after the limit game ends. Tonight, we played for a $5 stake. No big deal, I figure it’s worth my five spot to give it a whirl, even though I have never won a no-limit game. I just don’t have the patience for it. I’ll just go all in on a silly hand, and blow my stack, and then it’s too late.
Poker is not the only place where I lack patience and have a perpetuancy to make stupid mistakes for a lack of thought. I’m not a risk taker. But usually, when I gaul myself to the point where I take a risk, the risk I’m taking is stupid.
Tonight, I folded on like 14 straight hands. One guy had already gone out, and I was on a short stack. And still, I somehow maintained my focus, my composure, my patience. I’m not sure how exactly. I was just in the zone. Finally, I caught some hands, and they call came in a row. I flopped two pair, let a guy bet into me, and then went over him. Took his chip lead, and doubled my stacks. Two hands later, I flop a straight. Then a full house. I set all these traps. I played out of my gourd. And eventually, I went from down and on-the-way-out to chip leader, and then I won.
I’m still trying to process this. I’m not a winner. I don’t win games, sports, etc, etc. I learned very early about sportsmanship the only way most people ever do–by losing after giving it all you had. And I’ve learned to accept and expect to lose. I don’t mean that to sound pessmistic–it’s just the plain facts of my experience. From Little League all growing up, to Pop Warner football, to the roller hockey team I played on after high school to the softball team I’ve been on the last few summers, we just didn’t win as much as we lost all told. (There are a couple of exceptions–8th grade football, I picked off a pass and returned it for a touchdown…it ended up being the winning score; and our softball team the last couple years has been about .500 or so, but exceptions don’t make the rule.)
Where my pessmism does come in is in how I see how that losing plays out in the rest of my experience. I’m not a person who expects to win. I don’t even expect to come out even. I go into every situation I get in expecting to lose, get hurt, get beated, mocked, derided, etc, etc. And people wonder why I had an anger problem for so long. *shakes head*
So what do you do when it looks like you’re about to start winning? What do you do with that hope? It’s a dangerous thing, hope. I keep telling myself the same thing I was telling myself all night at the poker game tonight. Don’t freak out, don’t give yourself away, keep your mind on what you’re doing, and play the way you know how. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but don’t beat yourself by a lack of patience, or by jumping to action when it’s better to watch and pay attention. Here’s hoping I don’t lose my nerve. I’ve got some chips on the table. Ah well. We’ll see what happens. Freaking out isn’t going to help anything. (Listen to me try to convince myself. Maybe I’ll be able to.)
I have been having some really, really, really bad back pain the last couple of days. I woke up Wednesday morning, just sore, not able to really move my arms, and everytime I moved my neck, pain shot up and down my arms. Finally, yesterday, my roommate forced me to make a doctor’s appointment. An hour after the appointment was made, I got into a little fenderbender, and sure enough, my neck snapped back and forth. Last night (Thursday night) was marked by shooting pain in my back. Luckily, I had some people to keep me thinking about other stuff, bless their hearts. Today, I went to the doctor, and he cracked my back about fifteen ways from Sunday. Nasty sounds, I’m telling you. But I feel much better, and I can move my head again. That’s always a benefit. Speaking of that, it reminds me I should be getting some sleep. I’m pretty tired. Maybe I’ll dream of winning. There’d be a switch. Blessings, everyone.