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Had a fun weekend with Vera Valmore at a horse show. It was a lot of fun to get away and be off the “grid” for a couple of days.

I’ve written before about how Vera competes in dressage, that equestrian sport that involves training a horse to perform various gaits and movements — e.g., walk, trot, canter, passage, piaffe, pirouette, etc. Sometimes dressage gets referred to as “horse ballet” or compared to gymnastics, although the judging (in my opinion), while necessarily subjective, is much more heavily technique-based. (That’s a diagram of a dressage ring, by the way.)

Vera had a couple of nice rides this weekend, although her competitiveness and drive necessarily caused her to think she could have done better. We were at the show with some other riders, one of whom did particularly well in her two rides, netting a couple of high scores and first-place finishes in her classes. After her first ride, our friend came away expressing surprise that she had scored so well.

“It’s such a crapshoot,” she said, although I think she was being mostly humble.

Like I say, the scoring is somewhat subjective — it has to be, to some extent. But I do think that since the scoring is so carefully managed by a detailed score sheet on which judges mark the quality of every prescribed movement in a given ride, it really isn’t as much of a “crapshoot” as is the case in other kinds of competition.

That said, like in poker, there is definitely a “chance” element that can have something to do with how riders end up doing. At this particular event, one of the rings in which riders rode was unfortunately close to a nearby highway. Thus would the passing of a loud truck or some other traffic noise potentially startle the horses, and thus perhaps negatively affect a ride. Even just a stray rock stepped on by the horse during a ride can upset things in a significant way.

We were all talking at the show at one point when someone mentioned poker. I had brought some cards and a chip set, and eventually had fun teaching one of the other husbands there how to play no-limit hold’em. Without knowing what I’ve been up to this summer or over the last few years, the woman who had had the good rides then mentioned how her employer had gone to Las Vegas recently.

“Yeah, he played in this… what was it? World Series or something? World Series of Poker?”

I laughed and nodded. Did he play in the Main Event, I asked? She wasn’t sure. Was it a $10,000 buy-in event? Yes, it was. Indeed, he’d played in the ME, busting on one of the Day Ones.

I told her how I’d been there reporting on the Series, and while I didn’t recognize her employer’s name from the thousands who’d played the ME, I told her how he and I may very well have crossed paths at some point when he was there.

She went on to say how her understanding was that he is a very good player, although his credentials primarily consisted of his being a card counter. “He was even banned from one of the casinos because he was so good,” she said. I didn’t explain how card counting wasn’t so relevant in poker, but assumed that indeed the fellow probably had at least some acumen when it came to poker.

“Small world,” I thought, additionally considering how people from all sorts of backgrounds and locations go to Las Vegas each summer expressly to compete in the WSOP Main Event.

On the way home, I chatted some with the fellow to whom I had taught hold’em this weekend about how the ME worked. He was surprised to learn that only the top 10% of finishers got paid.

“Kind of like buying a lottery ticket, huh?” he asked, and I had to agree that in some respects it was. Though I did go on to explain that while one did probably have to get lucky to get all of the way to the final table and the millions of dollars waiting there, like with dressage, it wasn’t quite right to call it a complete “crapshoot.”

Then again, I guess just about anything — especially any competitive endeavor — could be regarded as a “crapshoot,” depending on one’s perspective.

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“Back to quits” is one of my favorite poker expressions, although I don’t think it is one that is all that commonly known or used. I don’t see it in The Official Dictionary Poker by Michael Weisenberg, accessible online over at Mike Caro’s site. Nor does it appear in The Poker Encyclopedia compiled by Ethan Allan and Hannah Mackay.

Can’t recall exactly where I first encountered it. I know Anthony Holden uses the phrase in Big Deal, which is why I think of it as probably more of a British term — like calling a player a “punter” or the pot the “pool.” Early in the book, Holden describes starting out his year-long experiment as a poker professional with some losses, followed by a couple of cashes in small tourneys and “a run of cards in a £5-and-£10 Hold ’Em side game, which got my bankroll back to quits.”

The meaning of the phrase is clear enough, I assume — getting back to even. I like the way the phrase connotes that irrational feeling we’ve all had that makes recovering one’s starting stack a requirement for leaving the game.

We know it’s wrong to think this way. “Perhaps the stupidest words in poker are ‘I’ve got to get even,” writes Al Schoonmaker in Your Worst Poker Enemy. “When you feel that way, you are in danger of turning an unpleasant loss into a catastrophe,” explains the psychologist. “You can get further off balance, play more poorly or perhaps go to a larger game or the craps table, desperately trying to get even.”

Thus do I like calling it getting “back to quits” rather than getting even, because the phrase tends to remind me that my real goal is simply to leave the game — which perhaps I should consider going ahead and doing rather than pressuring myself to recoup my losses. In other words, realizing that I’m simply trying to get “back to quits” sometimes helps me get up from the table sooner — not always easy to do. (Wrote about that a couple of times before, actually, in “Poker Sisyphean Challenge” and “The Long Goodbye”).

I sometimes marvel at how this mindfulness of how much I am up or down perfectly evokes the existentialist idea of “making meaning” — in this case, interpreting the meaning of my play according to what is necessarily a wholly subjective criterion that only really matters to me. In fact, depending on how aware my opponents are, sometimes I might be the only one who even knows if I’m up or down. And even if others are aware, they haven’t a true idea what the significance of being up or down (by a lot or a little) means to me, anyway.

It was during another session of Rush Poker (pot-limit Omaha, six-handed, $25 buy-in) that I found myself thinking about all of these things once again. Despite playing a few hands well early on, I’d taken a couple of unfortunate beats, then made a couple of missteps to take me nearly two buy-ins down. I gradually fought back, and without winning any large pots managed to get almost “back to quits” before signing off.

As those who have played Rush Poker know, with each new hand you are taken to a new table. After a while, you do start to see the same players, and it is even possible to get reads and use them (especially if you are a note-taker). But a lot of what happens in each individual hand happens without the usual contextual info of the standard game.

I realized absolutely no one knew whether I was up or down during my session. In fact, towards the end I was sitting with a fairly big stack (nearly three buy-ins deep), but was still down a couple of bucks. Nor did anyone know if I’d been playing well or poorly.

A hand came up where it folded to me on the button and I raised pot with a trash hand. As I did, I momentarily thought of my “image” and its significance (or lack thereof). My opponents didn’t really know if I was the sort of player who sometimes would raise with bad cards there. But I did.

As I waited for the blinds to act, I began involuntarily thinking about how I’d played the last couple of times it had folded to me on the button, actually considering — and maybe even being slightly affected by — the patterns in my own play. Patterns I had noticed, but no one else had.

The existentialist recognizes that while we play with each other, what the game means is necessarily going to be different to each of the players. And if for you getting to the end means returning to the beginning, well, only you may see the meaning of within.

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For those who might have missed it, check out the comments to yesterday’s post in which I talked about that forthcoming article by Kyle Siler on the “Social and Psychological Challenges of Poker” in the Journal of Gambling Studies. In the comments you’ll see Kevmath pointing us to that Time magazine piece that also discusses the study. And Andy Bloch — who I’m gonna go ahead and suggest is probably better equipped to judge these things than I am — came by to offer some thoughts as well.

One of the ideas that comes up near the end of Siler’s piece has to do with the special psychological pressures that arise when a player moves up in stakes. All of us who have played the game know about these pressures. Any sort of change from one’s “normal” game — be it a change in stakes or an attempt to try a different game — usually brings with it some measure of uncertainty, and some of us are better equipped than others to handle those differences (e.g., in opponents’ skill levels, in opponents’ strategies, in the hands/odds/play of other games, etc.).

In fact, this phenomenon — basically of finding it difficult to perform well when outside of one’s comfort zone — occurred to me more than once yesterday.

Was thinking about it last night while watching my UNC Tarheels get blasted by the Clemson Tigers in a game at Clemson. The Heels looked miserable from the start, turning the ball over every other possession and falling behind by 20 within the first nine minutes. UNC finally got it together midway through the first half and managed to play the Tigers evenly for the rest of the night, which meant they ended the game on the losing side of a 83-64 final.

Carolina has a few seniors, but those guys don’t have a ton of experience, and much of the roster is filled out by freshmen and sophomores. While they are undefeated at home (11-0), they are now only 1-4 when not playing in the Dean Dome. Clearly having to leave Chapel Hill and get out of their comfort zone has negatively affected the young team thus far, as that poor start last night well showed.

Earlier in the day I’d been thinking about the same idea while reading Jay Greenspan’s book Hunting Fish (2006), loaned to me a little while ago by Special K. I’ve only just started the book, which, as the subtitle announces, is a chronicle of Greenspan’s “cross-country search for America’s worst poker players.” The book is organized into 18 chapters, each of which focuses on a particular stop on Greenspan’s journey through various casinos, underground clubs, and home games. So far so good.

Greenspan has to deal with a couple of different varieties of uncertainty as he travels from game to game. For one, his goal is to build his bankroll and move up in stakes, and already at the beginning of the book he’s starting to express self-doubt about whether or not he’ll eventually discover he cannot psychologically handle the pressure of moving up. “I understood that for me there would be a limit,” he writes, “a level at which I would say, I simply can’t play this high. The stakes are too much for me.”

Of course, Greenspan also has to deal with the uncertainty of playing in unfamiliar environs with unfamiliar opponents. Like UNC last night, he’s going to be the away team every single night, and so will have to get accustomed to dealing with unknowns and adapting accordingly.

There was one other instance yesterday when this phenomenon occurred to me — when I sat down for a short online session of my usual pot-limit Omaha game. When away from the tables, I almost always think about playing a different game. And sometimes I think about playing at higher stakes than the usual $25 buy-in games where I am most comfortable. But somehow, after I’ve logged in and opened up the lobby to find a game, I always go back to what’s familiar.

I know playing other games or higher stakes will challenge me as a player, thereby helping me to improve. But I also know that by sticking with my usual game/stakes my familiarity there serves me well, too, as my experience tends to give me an edge — sometimes modest, sometimes significant — over my opponents. I don’t always win, but I usually know what the hell is going on. Thus do I minimize (somewhat) the “social and psychological challenges” game provides.

Challenges are necessary, though. And paradoxical. We desire them, but shun them, too. We fear uncertainty, and perhaps a lot of times even consciously avoid situations in which we are confronted by uncertainty. But we know that a life without uncertainty isn’t desirable either.

Of that I’m certain.

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Ooh, I left this here cup of coffee on the burner too long. Bitter. Gotta remember to grab that sucker more quickly next time.

For many, New Year’s Day is all about making resolutions, setting goals, and doing a general rethink of whatever it is about yr existence seems in need of such.

Well, maybe not right off. Could be all that important work of self-analysis comes later — after the effects of the previous evening’s let’s-party-like-there’s-no-tomorrow activities have sufficiently skedaddled, thereby allowing for relatively clear-headed cogitatin’.

I’ve certainly gone that route on January 1 numerous times. Might even be more tempting to do so here on the first day of the science-fictiony-sounding 2010 — a new decade. This-is-the-year-I’m-gonna… and then you fill in the blank. Or blanks.

Three years ago I kicked off the year writing about “Getting Off to a Good Start.” Was referring to something Barry Tanenbaum once wrote about beginning new sessions, but applied the idea as well to how one might approach any new stage in life.

Two years ago I began with a post titled “Looking Back & Looking Forward” in which I outlined a bunch of specific goals. Did accomplish some of those that year, but a couple got left behind pretty early on. One goal I set at the start of 2008 and did accomplish was the one of posting here every weekday, which I continued through last year, too. Not planning at the moment to deviate from that one in 2010.

Then I began 2009 writing about the “False Start” — the most frequently-called penalty in football, actually. There I suggested that false starts frequently happen at the poker tables, too. We’re excited just to be playing, and somehow it takes us a hand or ten to get our heads on straight and find our game.

Am a little too spent this year to do much more than look back at those earlier New Year posts. One reason is all the energy I put into a Betfair post, this one documenting the “Top Moments in Poker, 2000-2009.” Go check it out and let me know if I missed any of the biggies.

I will say this, though, as kind of a general introduction to 2010. I’m optimistic. Lots of reasons not to be, I suppose, if one has been reading any of those other, non-poker related “2000s in Review”-type articles over the last few days.

But I can’t help it. Like I say, I’m sitting here drinking this burnt-tasting cup of coffee, and while I should be grimacing, I can’t seem to get rid of this goofy grin.

Last year was a good one for me in terms of writing and poker, but I have higher expectations for this one. Am also anticipating other big “life stuff”-type changes in the new year, too, some of which I’ll chronicle here for sure.

Meanwhile, I think I’ll go get myself another cup of java. This one will be better.

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Wasn’t able to participate in that PokerStars record-breaking tournament yesterday, as I was busy during the mid-afternoon and couldn’t be there for the start. Looks like I was one of the few online poker players who didn’t, as the $1 no-limit hold’em tourney attracted 149,196 runners. I did pick up things later in the day and noted that the population of the event exceeded that of Syracuse, New York.

There was a $300,000 guarantee — didn’t even make it halfway to that total, so a big overlay there. The whole sucker took less than six hours to complete thanks to them five-minute levels and quickly rising blinds and antes. Top 30,000 got paid, though only the top 80 earned more than $100. Winner got $50,000. That’s a decent ROI.

Meanwhile I parked it in front of the crystal receiver to watch some NFL. Was most intrigued to see if the Indianapolis Colts, the league’s sole remaining unbeaten team at 14-0, could keep their streak going versus the up-and-down-though-mostly-down New York Jets. If the Colts could take care of NYJ, they had only the crummy Buffalo Bills — who were getting pounded by Atlanta 31-3 yesterday — to get past in the season’s final game to head into the playoffs without a loss.

Did not get the game locally, so I ended up following the score on the iPhone. Picked up a very cool app a few weeks ago called Wunder Radio that allows you to listen to radio stations around the world. So I dialed into 1070 The Fan to hear the Indianapolis radio network’s broadcast of the game.

As anyone who follows football well knows, the Colts were up 15-10 in the third quarter when the coaching staff decided to pull quarterback Peyton Manning along with some other starters. “Ridiculous!” pronounced the Colts’ play-by-play guy.

I lived in Indiana for a while back in the 90s and used to listen to this same announcer a lot then. That was the pre-Manning days when the Colts were usually horrible, and I remembered how sour the dude would often get after relating yet another bad play. His distaste at the decision to yank the starters yesterday reminded me of those days.

The Jets immediately forced a turnover and scored a go-ahead touchdown. The Colts couldn’t move the ball with the backup QB, and New York ended up winning going away, 29-15.

Despite my spell in Indiana, I’m not really a Colts fan. Still, was disappointing to hear them laying the game down that way, not to mention how doing so affects the rest of the playoff picture. I’m sure there are several teams fighting NYJ for one of those last wildcard spots who weren’t too pleased the Jets got that win yesterday, especially the way they did.

I listened to Peyton Manning in the post-game presser talk about how the decision to pull the starters had been in the works all along. “It was the plan,” said Manning, “the organizational philosophy that we were going with… and, as players, we support that.”

I’m a Manning fan. A hell of a QB, who is obviously smart and eminently likable. He also makes funny commercials. Not surprised at all to hear him support his coach and speak for his teammates this way. Still, that reference to the team’s “organizational philosophy” kind of made me cringe a little.

We’ve all been in those situations where we are forced to deal with a huge difference between theory and practice. Happens in poker all the time, where we begin a session or tournament or even a single hand with a “plan,” then realize how certain developments make sticking to that plan a less than desirable course to follow.

I’m not going to say it was “ridiculous” to pull Manning et al. and essentially hand the game to the Jets, thereby making the whole quest for 16-0 — genuinely important to many fans (and not just Colts fans) — seem like some sort of vain, immature desire. But I’m not going to say I liked it, either.

I understand the need to prevent injury and the “big picture” and all that. But it seems to me like the willingness to tank this game only increases the pressure for the Colts come playoff time rather than relieves it. And having your star quarterback defending your “organizational philosophy” after a loss — well, that sounds a bit more abstract than I’d like, too. Let’s talk about the game, and the decisions and plays we made to try to win it.

Maybe I’m missing the point. Sometimes it really is best to fold — even if you think you are best — in order to increase the likelihood for future, greater successes. Still, you gotta think Manning hated giving up this pot, even if it were a small one.

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