We don't have a game with you

If you've played any amount of golf, you've probably laid some money on the line. I'm part of a group of 18 guys who play together every weekend. It's pretty cool, we have 3 standing tee times every weekend morning, and we just make up teams amongst whomever shows up, and we play a small stakes team match. $2 for front, $2 for back, $2 for overall, 50 cents for closest to the pin on the par 3's, and a $1 in the middle for the 2 best low net scores.

Every Saturday. Every Sunday. The group (not me) has been doing this for a little over 20 years, members coming and going. The stakes are tiny, but the competition is fierce. It's a little comical to see a bunch of guys with 6-figure incomes (and I bet at least a couple guys are closer to 7 figures than 5 figures) gloat over quarters at the end of the round.

Today, 8 of us went to a new local course to check it out. The email said we'll play 3 (meaning we had to count 3 guys' scores each hole out of our foursome). Fine.

The course was good, but pretty difficult, and the new greens were rock-hard. As a team, we hit both par 3's on the front, but neither one was really close. As we were going up the seventh fairway, our opponents were coming down the sixth, and we asked them how many greenies they got. Their response: "One. But we don't have a game with you. We didn't agree before we teed off."

That came from the captain of the other team (our captains are just the guys with the lowest handicaps). He's a nice guy, but if he played poker, he would definitely be an angle shooter. There's certainly room to be an angle shooter in golf, especially in match play, and he's done it time and again. It's actually a running joke among the rest of the crew. Off the course, he's got to be one of the nicest guys I've ever met, and would give anyone the shirt off his back. But something in him changes when he gets in competition mode.

I'm writing about this because I've been annoyed about it all day, just on principle. Among our foursome, after the obligatory "nice shot" when one of us hit it well, the next most popular word the rest of the day was "chickenshit."

But I'm also writing about this because I've been thinking about some of the ways competition changes me. Although I wouldn't pull a stunt like this, I've got other things I really need to work on when things don't work out. And they apply not only to sports, but to poker as well. Even though I know better, my big problem in any sort of competition is getting way too pissed off, both at myself and even worse at my teammates and opponents sometimes.

Anything I do on an even semi-regular basis, I put in a lot of effort to do well. And when that effort isn't immediately gratified, I lose patience and get frustrated at least. I envy and admire those of you who take hardships in stride. It must make things so much more enjoyable. So, I think that's something to shoot for as well as all the other goals. In addition to making my favorite activities more enjoyable for me, it will make me a more pleasant guy to be around, a nice little win/win life lesson.

There haven't been a lot of hands because I haven't been playing much, but over a few thousand this month, I'm running a little better than expected on my all-ins, which is a welcome change from the recent past. I'm up for the month, and 4 buy-ins away from moving up a level on Full Tilt to equal the level I'm at on Stars, as I'm keeping my rolls for each site separate for now.

I'm still having trouble in re-raised pots, especially when I'm not the aggressor. Knowing I lack the confidence to play them, I'm being more inclined to fold. More on that later.