Bad Beats

In Confessions of a Winning Poker Player, Jack King said, "Few players recall big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career." Seems true to me. 'Cause walking in here, I can hardly remember how I built my bankroll, but I can't stop thinking of how I lost it.

Mike McDermott in Rounders

Mike (played by Matt Damon) was referring to poker beats, but I think the concept is also applicable to crushing defeats suffered by sports team for which you emotionally pull. I am not talking about “garden variety” losses in big games, but rather those last-minute snatches of defeat from the jaws of victory that just sting so deeply.

Benefit of the Doubt

My Shoulder Angel and Shoulder Demon regularly do battle, the intensity of which usually depends on that day’s emotional chemistry or star alignment. My Shoulder Demon, BadChep, is churlish, emotionally immature, and prone to the psychological condition technically known as The Red Ass. Online,  BadChep is manifested in the form of some fairly nasty snark. Conversely, my Shoulder Angel, GoodChep, is laid back,  pretty chill, and passive. The dirty water in this world that rolls right off the back of GoodChep can choke BadChep.

It was halftime of the Belk Bowl in Charlotte on December 27. I was freezing my buns off, so we decided to walk around the concourse of the lower-level of Bank of America Stadium. When we reach the Cincinnati Bearcats side of the bowl, one of their fans, a guy clearly older than me, approaches:

“Hey, we had a question for you Duke fans. A bunch of us were wondering who maybe the best player in the history of your program was. We weren’t able to really come up with anyone.”

Sigh. There was a lot of sub-context at play here.