The Value Of A Dollar

All you Blog brothers and sisters rock the free world. As Ozzy Osbourne says, "I love you all, people".

BTW, Ozzy is recovering nicely from his accident.

Felicia Lee, in her discussion about her husband's relationship with Poker, mentioned that he feels less stress playing tournement poker then he does playing cash games. This got me thinking about my own emotions when I'm playing.

I've mentioned that I seem to feel more comfortable playing on UB then I do on Party. If I get sucked out on a good hand in Party during a ring game, I tend to get alot more upset then if it happens on UB. I came to the conclusion that, I don't care about the money on UB. I put that money in there on the expectation that it was already gone. It's nothing but units. Numbers. They go up, they go down... They're completely disconnected from any value.

Thus is the same when you're playing a tournament. You've already put the money in... It's gone. You now have tournament chips, which have no real monetary value. As such, if you get kicked in the ass one hand, you're not really out any money. Just chips.

I have to find a way to disconnect myself from the money in Party and just play my game. I know I've got the fundamental skills to be a good poker player. I just have to overcome the emotional hurdle of negative reaction to a bad day. This, I imagine, is the great challange of all people who are engaged in competitive endeavors.

Perhaps the short term answer is to continue playing the sit and goes at Party. Which reminds me...

Yesterday, I did play some sit and goes.. 3, actually. results were two 3rd place finishes and a 5th place. +$2. The S&G I placed 5th in was my own stupidity. The entire table was tight passive, and really no one made any real bold moves. Seems everyone was waiting for someone else to make a move. Finally as the blinds got to 50/100, some people were starting to drop off, but I too had to make some moves. I got decent cards, but there were just too damn many players in the pots and my stuff just wasn't holding up. That's poker. Still, I've got a pretty impressive average finishing position going on here the last couple of days. Tomorrow will be a big poker day for me.. Wife is at work, I'm off.