ATTITUDE

             If not everything, attitude means an awful lot when it comes to winning at poker.  Naturally we all prefer top pairs or suited connectors to rags, but haven’t you noticed that holding good cards in a docile mood pays a hell of a lot less than when you feel like a hungry tiger? As almost every poker book says, it’s aggressive play that leads to victory.  So yesterday instead of stopping off at The Palms to play no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em, I should have gone to the movies.                

           I’m telling you, there are times when a man can’t get with it.  All afternoon, Old Vince Lombardi’s dictum: “winning isn’t the main thing, it’s the only thing,” seemed alien to me.  Constrained by an extinguished pilot light, I limped in with hands that merited a raise or backed down from drawing to straights or flushes.   I felt like a wounded stag surrounded by a pack of hunting dogs. When not nipping at my ankles, the pack seemed to go straight for the jugular. I began to lose hand after hand. Well, there are times you can’t do anything about that, but I don’t think such was the case yesterday.  My problem was I just didn’t care.  When some smart ass wiped me out on the river by making a set of fives to my weakly bet pair of aces, I smiled and offered congratulations rather than preparing to cut the creep's heart into pieces.  Instead of hostility, I kept eyeing my opponents with   indifference.  Let me tell you, that is no way to play the game. Even if one’s cards seem unfit to sustain an attack, a player should always be ready to go on the offensive.

           It is said that age makes one less aggressive.  I guess it has something to do with decreased testosterone levels or some other glandular malfunction.  Suddenly he who had been a raging warrior becomes an elderly statesman.   But if hormones are the culprit, why are so many female players kicking ass today?  Could it boil down instead to what’s in one’s mind and inside one’s heart?  Is there something to the concept that a winning attitude can generate winning cards?

           Leaving The Palms a few hundred dollars poorer, I vowed to never again play poker if losing did not upset me at least a little. Even if I hit a lotto jackpot, there is no way I intend to give money away graciously at poker. There are other places for that, such as making a donation to a children’s hospital.  

 

           It is said that the game of poker is a microcosm of the game of life.  If so, when cooking a meal, or writing a letter or skiing down a hillside, shouldn’t we act with determination and enthusiasm? Under those conditions, a losing day would be nothing more than a temporary setback.  You know what?   I think Coach Lombardi had it right after all.