By John Vorhaus

Why do you play poker?

Do you do it for fun? To make a living? To put a few extra shekels in your satchel? Maybe, sadly, your obsessive-compulsive personality won’t let you get away from the game. If that’s the case (a subject for a different time) I encourage you to take a good, hard look at yourself and remember, “Sometimes you chase the buzz, but sometimes the buzz chases you.”

Me… and I’m being totally honest with you now… I play poker for revenge. Smart guy’s revenge. Little guy’s revenge. Revenge of the bullied boy who finally found a schoolyard where fists and muscles don’t count but bets and bluffs and courage do. I know I’m wrong to do this. I know that poker is a game better thought than felt, but I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t admit that the little boy buried deep inside my brain gets a certain shiver of delight every time he pushes someone off a pot. I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t admit that I was, in some sense, pushing back at all the bigger, stronger kids who ever pushed me down.

And I know that lying to myself is no way to play poker.

So I’m prepared to own that little guy. I’m prepared to acknowledge the child I was, the guy with the fat I.Q. and the chubby legs, last picked for everything except, Hey, who can we give a wedgie to? The guy voted least likely to complete the 50-yard dash.

I was in the bridge club, you know. Hell, I was the bridge club. The backgammon club and the Dungeons & Dragons club too. Because even back then I had this strong competitive urge, but no realistic place in the physical world to purge it. Basketball? Football? Get serious. I loved baseball, but I couldn’t hit, field, throw or catch, and I was deathly afraid of the ball. So that didn’t work.

Games worked. Games worked big-time, because they played to my cranial strength and let me experience the bliss of winning. They worked only imperfectly, though, because while they tested my smarts, they didn’t test my mettle. Sports test your ability, but also your character. What I needed was a game that was a sport.

And then I found poker.

And the smart guy’s revenge began.

Bet into me? Pow! I bet you back! Raise my blind? I raise you all-in with nothing! I stare you down. I fix you with a steely gaze that says, “Don’t start nothin’, there won’t be nothin‘.” And you fold! And I feel good.

I know it’s not right. You don’t have to tell me it’s not right. It’s short-sighted, self-serving, self-indulgent, wrong-head hooey, and it’s no way to play Killer Poker or even sensible poker. It’s one thing to play aggressively for strategic reasons, but just to feel good? Ack! That’s bad!

John Vorhaus is the author of POKER NIGHT and the KILLER POKER series. Excerpts and ordering information are available at his website, www.vorza.com.

Copyright © 2008 Pokerhelper.com. All rights reserved.
Reproduction of this article in whole or in part without permission from Pokerhelper.com is prohibited.