Finding the Time

“If this were yesterday what time would it be now?”

Asked Vera of me late last evening. By then most of the clocks in the house had already been readjusted to account for Daylight Savings Time. But still, certain questions remained.

Somehow the day the clocks change always sneaks up on us. In the fall, it’s a pleasant surprise. (A-ha, extra hour of weekend to enjoy!) In the spring, though, when we lose that hour, it always feels like an especially rude theft from our rightfully allotted period of leisure.

And now it’s Monday morning already. Work to do.

Speaking of leisure time, I did get a chance over the last couple of days to sit at the online tables briefly. After a spell of nothing but Rush Poker (pot-limit Omaha) for a few weeks, I’ve moved back over to the ring games for the most part, splitting time between PLO and limit hold’em. I will every now and then jump back into the Rush Poker pool once in a while for a few quick laps, though.

Going back and forth like this highlights a couple of key differences between the formats. One, obviously, is all that rushing that goes on in Rush Poker. No time for nothin’. You do end up logging right about three times as many hands than in the ring games. I say “logging” rather than “playing,” because, well, you aren’t really “playing” a lot of those hands that are whizzing by. You’re folding them and letting others play them. Or quick folding them.

The other big difference is obvious, too -- the whole “table image” game-within-the-game that gets mostly lost in Rush Poker, but which is essential in the regular ring games.

I realize going back to the ring games how much I enjoy this aspect of poker. The collecting of clues. The telling of tales. The stuff that happens when we slow down, take a look around the table, and start figgerin’ what it is all these people are up to with their checks and bets and raises. And what it is we are up to, too.

I wish I had more time to reflect on these things. If this were yesterday, there’d be time to do so. But the weekend’s gone and I’ve got to get to work.