Why Do I Play Poker?

Those words are the kiss of death to me.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard them and actu­ally won.

The part that sucks the most is my wife is so earnest when she says them.  She’s actu­ally root­ing for me.  She wants me to win. Yet, that’s all it takes for me to know I’m fucked before I even start.  I should just take my money and go to a strip club.

“Uh, Honey, you know those those nice, encour­ag­ing words you gave me before I went out?  Well, they fucked up my head. As soon as I heard them, I knew I would lose at poker so I went to Crazy Girls and spent $300 to have this Latina spin­ner dry hump my leg.”

That’s at least log­i­cal.  It doesn’t say much for me as a hus­band, but it makes sense. How­ever, I don’t do that. I go and play. When I walk in the the casino, the valet might as well  yell “Dead man walkin’.”  Now it’s just a mat­ter of putting in the time and money to make this self-fulfilling prophecy come true.

I tell myself I’m not even super­sti­tious.  But obvi­ously I am.  Okay, I admit, I don’t like play­ing poker on Fri­day the 13th either.  What’s that about?  I’m a seri­ous poker player.  I don’t believe in luck.  I roll my eyes when I even hear some­one com­plain about it.  But if I hear the three words “Win big tonight!” I men­tally throw in the towel.   Same thing when I see that dealer who killed me when I had quads.

Okay, so I’m super­sti­tious.  I can accept that.  The thing that makes me crazy is that I don’t adjust my game.  If I have some­one really loose on my right I adjust.  Some­one really tight on my left, I change my attack.  So from now on I’m going to adjust my game when I hear those words “Win big Honey!”.   I’m not playing.

I’m prob­a­bly not going to the strip club either, but I always won­dered what a $300 ice cream sun­dae looks like.

I guess some­times I play poker to know some­times I shouldn’t.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net