Like many people, I love playing and watching a lot of different sports, with one of my favourites being golf. I’ve had golf on in the background on many Sundays whilst playing poker, and always enjoy seeing one of my favourite players in contention over the closing holes of a tournament. However, there is a single golf tournament that stands out for me by a long way and that is the Ryder Cup. This biannual tournament that pits Team Europe against Team USA over three days of golf is manna from heaven for me.
The thing I love so much about it is that it changes the dynamics of golf so dramatically. What is normally an individual battle becomes a team collective effort. The ability to work as a team, and put aside individual glory, was the glue which bound the European team together throughout many of the last Ryder Cup meetings and was the bedrock on which their success was built. Whilst the Americans had higher ranked individual players and often went into the tournament as favourites, time and time again the unity of the European team defied the odds. There is probably no single bigger individual sport than golf (with the exception of darts where the term ‘bigger’ has a different connotation) and I love to see all of the game’s greats have to check their ego in at the door and work for a shared goal.
The Grading has been much like this. All of us that were selected had to check our egos in both big and small and work together in workshops and discuss hands with one another. Each of us were, and still are, at a different part of our poker journey but could learn something from being in a room full of people all trying to improve their game. Poker, a largely individual pursuit, became a shared goal as we all tried to consider ways to play hands more effectively, and to spur each other on to get in the table hours required.
In the coming weeks, three ‘winners’ will be announced but for every striker who grabs the headlines when they score a goal, their team-mates are all vital cogs in any victory. It’s been great to be part of the Grading group and although we’re not quite at the finishing line, I’d like to congratulate everyone who has taken part. For those who had to drop out for reasons such as work, family, personal or variance, I equally congratulate them. No one I have spoken to undertook the Grading without the intention of completing it, or devoting six weeks to improving their game.
Personally, I’ve got three or four sessions left before I’ll reach the target hours. The real target for me though was to spend time working hard on my game at the tables, and away from them. That goal won’t be reached this, or any other Sunday. The drive to improve stays with us as poker players, and is our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.