Saturday, December 13, 2003

Momma said there'd be days like this

Character. How does a man develop the quality known as "character", the ability to endure, to persevere, to show courage and determination in the face of adversity? Does one build character through easy victory, through benevolent handouts, through luck? No. Character develops by overcoming obstacles, by struggling against difficulties once thought insurmountable, by suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Last night was, for me, a character building experience. I played for two hours and won two hands. Two. Neither a big pot. Twice I held full houses (fulls house? fulls houses?) and lost to bigger boats, another I lost with the nut-flush to a ridiculous twos full of threes. Played for about two hours and inexhorably lost 25 bucks.

But I didn't despair. I stepped away from the table, didn't try to fight the Fates, and realized that this was one of those poker-character-building episodes all players must go through. It was also, I must add, a vocabulary-building experience. I used all sorts of words as my few decent hands were snapped like breadsticks, words that rhyme with "duck" and "flit" and "glass bowl". I didn't say that I took this character-building gracefully. I just took it, like a right cross to the chops.

posted by Gene @ 3:21 PM   |