A Momentary Loss of Focus

Had a nice, relaxing day yesterday, made even nicer by all of the friendly birthday tweets I received. (Thanks again, all.) Yeah, it was my birthday, which I didn’t mention here but did note on Twitter when I decided to host a “Birthday Bash” home game over on PokerStars.

By the way, if you have a PokerStars account and want to join my “Hard-Boiled Poker” home game in which the games are for play money (and pride), the Club ID is 530631 and the invitation code is noshinola. I’ll probably crank up another couple of tourneys this week, which I’ll announce over Twitter (@hardboiledpoker).

Am thinking it might be fun to set up some sort of weekly tourney or league at some point, probably after I return from the WSOP in mid-July. Anyone with suggestions and/or preferences for times, tourney types, structures, etc., feel free to send them along.

Mostly rode out the big day at home, although I did go out at one point for some errands, including a needed visit to the eye doctor.

I’ve worn eyeglasses for most of my adult life, and not long ago got a new prescription and had the lenses replaced in the frame I’ve had for a few years. Unfortunately that old frame finally gave out and broke -- on my Uruguay trip, actually -- and so I had to go in to see about that.

Anyway, I relate this mundane bit of trivia to you mainly because of a funny moment that came up along the way. Before heading over to the eye doctor, I fished around to see if perhaps I had any old glasses lying around. I found a pair, put them on, and was kind of floored by the fact that the world appeared an indecipherable, blurry mess when I looked through them.

Wow, I thought. I didn’t realize my new prescription was that different.

It was my birthday, mind you. And perhaps as a result, ideas of getting older and bodies failing and all the other existential applesauce that sometimes accompany such momentous occasions surfaced even more quickly than usual.

I indulged for a few minutes in a probably predictable bit of brooding, then found more immediate distractions to keep such thoughts at bay. You know, like usual. What our lives mostly consist of, right? Staying in motion. Keeping busy. Looking at what’s just ahead.

Eventually Vera got home and at some point we got around to discussing my quest for a new pair of spectacles. Something in my story sounded a little off to her, and quickly she set it right after pointing out where I’d gone wrong.

That old pair of glasses I’d tried on weren’t mine. They were hers. No wonder I couldn’t see a thing through them.

In my defense, Vera’s glasses do look very similar to mine, with the same small oval lenses. Even to people who can see clearly. Her prescription is much, much different, though. And really, if I’d thought about it for more than a few seconds, I’d have realized there was no way those lenses were at any point in time ever correct for me.

In fact, after a bit more searching I did find an older pair of mine from a few years back, and after putting them on realized my vision hasn’t weakened all that much over the last few years.

Thought it was funny, though, how quickly and easily self-doubt can come. Happens in poker all the time, even in a single hand. We make a decision on an early street about an opponent’s possible holdings, then something happens later to make us doubt that earlier read.

“Man, did I see things badly before,” we think. Then come to find out we were seeing just fine earlier, it was later we started misread the situation. Not to mention misread our own judgment -- our ability to see -- as well.