So Why Do I Play?

After my "Things I Hate" post, I thought it would be interesting to cover a question that I am asked by my s/o quite often. By the way, s/o is significant other...saying (S.O. or S slash O) or typing it that way is the new thing. It's in my blog, so now you know. I will come home spewing hatred towards the "donkeys" and the "horrible play" I see and she will stop me as I walk around and say something like "Well...if it gets you this upset, why do you play? Isn't it suppose to be stress relief?" She is right...it should be a form of stress relief for me, however I have found that just hanging out with my friends is that stress relief...the poker is something we do while we are hanging out. So the real question should be "Why do you play poker and interupt your weekly night out of stress relief?" Now THAT'S a good question...

The answer is not necessarily simple. What do I do in my life that I would consider hobbies? I play some guitar every now and again. I like to fancy myself an amateur brewer and taster of beers. I enjoy hanging out with friends. None of those activities feed one of the major male desires that I have...the need for competition. Let me go ahead and say outright...I am not a Wagner. I cannot play basketball. I was never good at any sport. I considered tennis for a while in high school until my racket broke and I just never got it fixed. Even then, the few team matches I played I was no better than "okay". I tried online gaming, but let's face it...when you grow up, online gaming just isn't as "cool" as you thought it was. I don't like being holed up in a dark room pretending I am at war. What I finally found after years of trying to feed this competition desire was that I liked poker.

The boom hit right after Chris Moneymaker made his millions. TV had bought into their piece of the poker idea. ESPN seemd to have a game on every 20 minutes. There wasn't even a time where I scorned it...I just flipped by it one day and was hooked. I had to learn to do this. A few web pages later and we were having a free weekly game at my place so we could learn. Then I moved to Knoxville! This was the land of freeroll poker. It was like OZ for someone who didn't have a bankroll to blow. I immediately sunk in and started playing 2-3 nights a week. My first live tournament was at Bullfeathers, a local bar in Knoxville. I signed up...talked to the tournament director and got to know him a little and very soon, I was playing. I sucked. I was out pretty quick if memory serves me. I left and decided I would come right back the next time they played. I started to make some friends around the Knoxville poker scene...Meryl, PJ, Greg...we would play as often as we could together live. I give Meryl a lot of credit for my current state of skill...she really made me play better by challenging me. But what I was seeing was that my competitive fire was being fed at these local freerolls.

Another thing I learned was that my patience with ignorant people was also tried on a nightly basis. We had the "fake pro" yelling at newbies. We had people who had played for years playing like they just walked in the door and thought it was a cribbage game. We had degenerate gamblers just trying to qualify for the money tournaments. It was a nice mix if douchebaggery, if you will. I learned from an early time that I would have to deal with jackassery and learn how to be mad, but not let it ruin my overall time.

The thing is that I don't hate anything about playing poker. The people, the play, the competition? No. I love it all. However, I do vent about situations that arise. I imagine it would be the same if I were to actually get a chance to use the golf clubs I bought last summer. I would come home venting that I didn't get out of the bunker in 2 on hole 9. Perhaps...my venting should be done in a more positive way so that people do not think I absolutely am in a love hate relationship with the game that I honestly feel best suited to play.

With all that said...I guess I play because I need it. I don't hate the donkeys. I don't hate their donkey play. I don't even hate that I have a way of being a complete douchebag to them when they do the donkey things that donkeys do. I love the interaction. I love the bickering. I love the suckouts. Maybe I am a masochist...maybe I just love poker.