Anticipation

For those of us of a certain age, the title of this post automatically makes us think of that Carly Simon song from the ’70s. Which in turn makes us think of Heinz ketchup. And absurd exchanges between children about whether or not their mothers buy them Heinz ketchup for their burgers and fries.

That’s because those ads were pounded into all our consciousnesses relentlessly during our formative years sitting in front of the tube, a.k.a., the “electronic babysitter.” Kind of like those multiple Geico campaigns from which there presently appears no escape.

Between the World Series of Poker being just a little over two weeks away, the big finale of the World Poker Tour’s Season X coming up before that, suggestive hints about the PokerStars-Full Tilt Poker-DOJ deal possibly edging toward completion, other legal machinations regarding online poker currently being advanced, and even the imminent return of the Two Plus Two forums (tomorrow?), the word seems most apt to describe the poker world at the present moment.

It’s like watching Tom Dwan holding out chips, hesitating before releasing them onto the felt. Like were all just waiting for something to happen. Soon. And perhaps something big.

Perhaps we’re also conditioned a bit by the fact that over the last year or so -- really the last several years -- there hasn’t been a stretch of more than a couple or three months to go by without some “bombshell” going off somewhere in the poker world. So after a period of relative calm, we brace ourselves, expecting something to happen yet again to cause us to rethink pretty much everything we thought we knew before.

I guess as poker players we all kind of hunger for such news, too... not unlike we crave “action” at the tables. All of which makes the feeling of anticipation that much stronger.

We’ll see what happens, and if we have to wait much longer. Meanwhile, I’m hungry. Who else wants to go for a burger?