Tournament Blues

I understand where all this is coming from... Back in the day, we used to play for "fun." To me, poker was an excuse to meet up with you guys and talk about random stuff... Soon after, it became more about a single game... A game where anything could happen. We were a few years early on it, but we were caught up in the craze. What other game had more extensive research done? I don't believe baseball has more than one paragraph devoted to it in the poker library. It was something we could study and learn to get better in.

So we then moved to structured texas hold 'em. That was all well and good to learn more about the mechanics of the game. We became more comfortable with the game, and learned the hard way how not to play, even with "friends." It became less of something fun to do, more of a skill we wanted to excel at.

Then we moved to tournaments. This is where our love for the game has changed into something more. We played the game to win. To test each other. Yet even at this point, we're still not playing real poker... This is why I don't count these games as wins or losses. With friends, we're more apt to fool around, tell each other that we're holding 72x... Tournaments kind of stifle this, since we are playing for the sole purpose of winning. If we don't win? We sit out and deal cards to the winners. In a tournament style, we play tighter, maybe we won't play those weird K10x anymore, we throw more hands away and wait for the next hand. No longer can we call back upon the "Whatever" mantra. Have junk cards? Ahhh, let's play them for shits and giggles. The tournament does not allow for stupid mistakes like that. So we're a little more serious. And we all know we can't be serious for very long.

I can't speak for everyone, but I'm in favor for mixing up the games a little more, playing less tournaments, since of course there are people that will lose, and become excluded. Watching hold 'em isn't all that exciting after the 100th hand. Of course, I can always fall back on DDR/Karaoke Revolution, so I'm fine. And you guys still playing cards can enjoy my tap patterns/singing voice for hours to come :)

I think it also has to do with "outplaying" people. You can't gloat about it, like you can in Tetris Attack, because you're physically taking something away from that person. We all win a big hand at times, but are we happy about it? Yes, but we are also apologetic to the loser who is holding the second hand to the nuts who had to go balls out. If we did it to a stranger at the tables? We'd be joking about it for months to come.

And totally unrelated...

Happy Belated B-day Kevin and Shannon!