POCKET ACES

The Thrill of Poker

If you've ever experienced an anxiety attack -- even the slightest of ones -- then you have a clue! You are the George Plimpton of poker!

Or you could be like the young man from one of the "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire" episodes. He easily answered the qualifying questions, putting something in order of time or location and won a spot to compete against Regis Philbin's multiple choice questions. Dressed to the nines in a style imitating the host, the young man answered the first question -- about a nursery rhyme character -- with the confidence of a wizard. Wrong! He missed the simplest of questions! The look of shock and disbelief on the young man's face was sadly priceless and was replaced by another contestant.

This year, thanks to cyberpoker and publicity garnered for the game by televised poker championships, the World Series numbers are outdistancing those of years gone by the proverbial leaps and bounds. This means, of course, many players are or will be caught up in the moment and many will fall by the wayside -- quickly devoured by calmer, cooler heads.

It could take days before the shock wears off enough so these folks can objectively assess what happened. Maybe they played too aggressively, maybe too timidly. If they lasted a while, say to a third or fourth limit change, they might have become over confident or frightened by their small stack or impressed with their large stack. Whatever happens at this point doesn't matter because in the end there will be one winner only (although second through ninth place are paying nicely as well).

Chances are, though, these players will be playing and replaying their World Series experience over and over in their heads and in their conversations for some time. Some, however, will become immediately and permanently discouraged by their failing, and this would be a very sad road to take.

In tournaments such as these 90 percent of the players will be elminated. There's no shame to that and there's no real failure in that. The real problem comes from not separating the temporary result from the long term possibilities and in misunderstanding what happens in the heat of battle.

So you called a few players with your pair of hidden deuces, saw a deuce on the flop and lost on the river. Maybe it was a mistake to commit all your chips to deuces, maybe not, depending on how close to the felt you were and how strong or weak your other players were. Good decision or bad, you got knocked out of the tournament.

Now instead of kicking yourself for being stupid and instead of taking your pride and skulking home, give yourself a break. Take some time to calm down, breathe deeply, reorient yourself to the life you had before you ran with the bulls, then look at your experience objectively.

Put yourself to the task of finding out exactly what caused you to lose that last cheque. More than likely you did the right thing but the wrong result occurred. That sneaky little Lady Luck smiled at you but kissed your opponent. That's all there is to that. You could have been Phil Hellmuth with a powerful pair of queens getting rivered by a player with a much weaker starting hand. There's no shame in that.

Now, if you went into a big hand with a deuce-nine offsuit and lost, you've got a lot to kick yourself about.

You have to let history repeat itself for you. You have to go forth with that same pair of queens knowing full well you could lose, knowing full well you have the odds in your favor, and knowing full well that you've done the right thing. You've learned from your experience and maybe things will work out the way they're supposed to.

And if they don't, remember, even if your mortgage payment relies upon it, it's still a game of cards where skill has to be in close proximity to the luck of the deal.