So I walked into my "regular" poker room today for the first time in 3 months. I put the word "regular" in quotation marks because I'm not (a) regular in either the general sense of the word nor the proctological sense, both owing to my recent back surgery. Too much information, sorry, I know.


Anyway, a group of people come up to say hello and tell me how well I look. A lie, of course, but a nice one, a distant cousin to the lie a sometime poster here told me when he asked for my mailing address to send me a get-well card and instead sent me two wonderful CDs. Some lies are OK, some are wonderful.


Half of them told me it was great to see me alive and well; the other half said nothing, and I assume they disagreed with both the alive and well part, proving the old adage that you can only please half of the people half of the time (for a net of 25%?), or however that goes.


As sitting is still a literal and figurative pain in the ass, I played for only an hour and a half. One minor mistake, one major one, a couple of good plays. About par for the course.


At this point in the story, I was going to lie and tell you I lost two racks and it was the greatest poker session of my life. Alas, I won half a rack, but had I lost those two racks, it still would have been my greatest poker session ever. I hope one day to shoot 115 on the golf course and get schmottered in a tennis match 6-0, 6-0. Those will be my greatest golf and tennis games ever too.


When you don't know whether or not you'll ever walk again, much less walk into a casino or onto a golf course or tennis court, being able to do something you love is a treasure (and of course it should always be so). For all my past complaints about the jerks you encounter in the card room, and the lousy service, and this and that, the fact remains I love poker. I guess we all do and that's why we're here. I don't quite know why--the thrill of victory, the naughtiness of it, the boyishness of it, the comraderie, the rush of gambling--probably a combination of all of those things and more. I know Mr. Sklansky says that to think of poker as something glamorous is very bad. And of course, logically, he's right. But these days I'll let logic take a back seat, at least temporarily. More like Nick the Greek's philosophy--the next best thing to gambling and winning is gambling and losing. Needless to say, do not try this at home.


The moral of the story? Well, please no sympathy responses. There are so many people I know who've had a harder time than I have and are much, much more deserving of your sympathy. But:


1) If you're young, listen to us old farts who tell you to take care of yourself.


2) If you're young, listen to us old farts who tell you it goes by pretty damn fast. One morning you wake up and look into the mirror and there's an old man looking back at you. Carpe diem!


3) No matter what your age, enjoy life! Bad beats happen, make the best of them, not the worst. A Morganesque approach, seasoned with Angeloic understanding, seems just about right.


Andy