In Rome, do as the Parisians would do…aka Head-butts and Cold Calls are for the developmentally delayed…aka Now for Something Completely Different…

Renaissance author Francis Bacon wrote in 1597 that “Knowledge is Power”, I wonder how his pansy ass would hold up in a 4 hour marathon MTT and if he would still have the same opinion. Or would he change his mind and state that Mental Stamina and Toughness is Power.

Indulge me, and allow me this pontification:
I find I have discovered a hole in my game, one that maybe some of you have encountered. It is the moment where for a split second, after 4 hours/240 minutes/14,400 seconds of focused, digested, discerned, calculated, manipulated, aggressive, mean-spirited and otherwise perfect poker play, I Cold Call an All-In bet towards the end of the tournament. Why? To be the table hero, to take the bullet for the team, to potentially knock one more meatball out of the tournament, to move up, or closer towards the money. And what is my reward for this valiant, nay selfless, effort? I lose about 10 to 20% of my hard earned stack, and my table mates get very “Et Tu, Brute” on me, pushing harder to steal my blinds, now that I have too, become somewhat weakened.

In this year’s World Cup Final (for you Americans, imagine a bunch of true athletes kicking a black and white sphere over all over God’s creation for hours on end, without commercials, For no discernable reason, while a mob of foreigners are doing their best impression of Yankee fans on acid) when Marco Materazzi exclaimed “I could have been your bone-daddy but the dog beat me over the fence”, it unleashed a primordial involuntary response from Zinedine Zidane in the form of a Cold Call – by which I mean one savage head butt. Fortunately no one noticed, or it might have been an issue. I myself might have resorted to a Stoogesque two-finger eye poke - head butts are so extreme and run the risk of damaging the hallowed vault that is my cranium.
So my observation of the week is this: All-In Cold Calls are Head Butts: they give you a headache, they mortally wound your pride, they prevent you from achieving your goals, and generally make you look like an all around ass (curmudgeon doesn’t work here).

Did you know that triumphant Roman Generals would be treated to a ticker-tape-like parade after victories against their rivals? The Crowd would cheer “carpe diem” towards the victorious general, while a little servant would sit behind the general and repeat “Respice post te! Hominem te memento mori!" which loosely translates into “Look behind you! Remember that you are but a mortal man!”

I need one of these little fidgets to sit on my shoulder during a 4 hour MTT. Waffles has applied for the position, but is unfortunately overqualified. Why? To tell me when to switch gears, when I’m no longer the short stack and to pull back the aggression, to tell me not to be the table hero, and to point out who is Caesar, so I can finish off his mortally wounded ass. I think we could call this fictitious Fidget “Hacker”, just picking a name out of the ether. Speaking of mah boy, it was great meeting him and stuff, but that high screeching, pre-pubescence voice coming out of a six foot with change man continues to haunt me in my sleep. Talk about a voice ruining an image, the movie Trans-America came to mind for some reason… Think Tom Cruise in biker tights a size too small. You’re welcome.

But I digress, and talk of high screeching voices and death harkens me back to my medical school and the residency days of my long lost youth. I did my residency at the Ak Chim Indian Reservation in Arizona. For those you that don’t know, you can’t do, or learn jack shit in an American based hospital (too many rules, lawsuits, regulations, liability), so most medical studies migrate to the Caribbean or an Indian reservation where basically you can perform brain surgery on your first day of work. Successful brain surgery? Nope. But you do get to work the rotary saw, and the simple joy of shaving an unsuspecting head cannot be overstated.

I was sewing a guy up one day - I can’t recall what he did, let’s just say it wasn’t pretty, and I see two hot Asian nurses eyeing me up out of the corner of my eye. Asian chicks have the greatest back sides. As Ron Burgundy would say, “It is a Scientific Fact, Look it up”. The young ladies approached me later during my rounds to ask if I was, indeed, Robbie Benson. I couldn’t resist, I noticed my name tag had turned inside out; I slickly removed it and put it in my pocket. “Why, yes I am”. I went on to explain that Hollywood was so fake, that I gave up acting for a more noble profession. Shortly thereafter, the screeching began. Ah, that wonderful memory of high pitched resonance lasted for years, until now, it sadly has been replaced with Hacker’s mug.

BTW, people have always said I look like the Robster. I personally am pretty ticked at him for never hitting it huge so that I in my youth could also have hit it huge, so to speak. Of course I pray that at 35, people mean I look like the 22-30 year old RB. Have you seen that guy lately (at 50-something)? Not even Dr. Rey could make much of that. As Waffles or Steve-o might note - Ick.

Laytah.

EDIT:

Just received the funniest/truest/briefest comment evah on this blog and wanted to make sure it did not go unheralded. Last post, comment 23 reads:

"Good LORD you are a selfrighteous bastard. I can't believe anybody reads this shit and takes it seriously. "

The only shame is this was anonymous, so that I can't properly address the object of my admirations. He or she (or heshe perhaps) raises a couple of points I wholeheartedly concur with: most of what I put down is pointless drivel, and that it is frankly astonishing anyone reads it. Not only this, through the judicious use of capitalization I am left feeling that the task of reading my dreck actually pained this person. I understand completely. Imagine being the one creating it! A few small bones of contention (think hamate and lunate, not femur or humerus):

1. Self-righteous? I politely dispute (I'm Canadian - that's how we roll). Self-centered, self-serving, self-aggrandizing, sure. No debate. But in general, I rarely consider myself the final arbiter of anything, and when it comes to poker I don't even consider myself to be carrying a properly equipped pencil case. As I said, I dispute.
2. Bastard? Oh yeah? I have documents. And I was recently genotyped. So there.
3. No one, and I mean NO ONE takes this shit seriously. Beginning and ending with me. You shouldn't either.

Anyhow, thanks for stopping by, and if it's any consolation I too am deeply concerned about the perpetrator of this blog. Rumour has it he's an egomaniac. Let's both keep an eye on him. Next time leave your name, blog, etc. Also feel free to share your views on having internet friends stay at your house rent free for extended periods of time while on vacation. I'm making a list.