Lately I’ve been kicking around the word and world of EXPECTATION and believe it or not, everything we do fits right into that little orb of insanity. Everything we do is based on expectation. I’ve gleaned valuable insight into relationships and expectation just from my own adventures and experiencing my sons’ life situations; include a multitude of friends and relatives also. A relationship is one that you go beyond “Hi, How you doing?” as you walk on by.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we EXPECT something out of relationships, even though we don’t knock ourselves out to put a lot into them at times, we still expect. What a convoluted thread that is, a psychiatrists’ dream in the making. And this is a convoluted post, running hither and yon, leaping from rock to rock, as I cross the raging river of expectation to a jagged shore that leads nowhere.

I’ve recently been involved in a series of relationships that include two of my grandchildren – I’m there because I’m granny – and the cast of players (from all sides) keep pulling me into the mix. These are the relationships of love, lust and passion, and people things that happen everywhere in the world on a never ending basis. I hate to watch them happen because I’ve been through a lot of this and it affects the heart and our emotional needs and our expectation when we entered the relationship. *Let me add here that I have no idea how anyone ever expects anything from anyone else in today’s helter skelter craziness. It’s all too insane to even try to figure out – and then to have children with someone and expect to put your life together with theirs, is downright damn scary.* I have no answers to any of the puzzle. I don’t even try to have answers or give advice, I just listen and interject a bit of logic now and then – I’m sure some of them hate me for the logic but even if they do, they still keep calling me.

Aside from those physical, love you ’til I die, passionate embraces, we have our friendships, work, exercise and wellness, and self motivated expectations. The list is endless.

We compete with expectation, whether it’s to satisfy our ego or gain wealth and fame, we still expect. We play poker with expectation. I don’t honestly believe that the majority of people that play poker expect to win. I believe that most of them ‘hope’ to win. Behind every expectation, one needs to look for motivation. I believe that’s one of the most fascinating things we can discover in ourselves and others is the motivation that moves us to expect a return.

Poker and life run so many parallels that a session at the poker table is like watching a short skit about life.

I have a million poker stories about playing and dealing from my side of the green felt, some of them will never come to light, some of them should be told because they are entertaining, some of them need to be told – just because, and I totally EXPECT that when I write them, I will get all of the slop comments about being unprofessional, that I’m not a ‘good’ dealer, that I’m bitching about tipping, that I should go get another job, blah, blah, blah. Yeah? And you can EXPECT this answer from me, “If you don’t like reading about it, get the hell our of here and go somewhere else, Dipstick!”

Here’s one for the record books – it’s all about EXPECTATION.

2+2 and RGP posters, and a lot of others, always thought that I stopped writing about Andy Beal vs. the Corporation because I was reprimanded by Bellagio or threatened with firing. NOT even close.

I happened to be dealing a game one night that broke down. Player A sat down to talk to Player B. They were discussing the Beal game. Player A laughingly looked at me and said, “Don’t talk about it in front of her, she writes about us on the internet.”

Player B’s head came up, “I’m asking you not to write about this.”

I explained that I didn’t write anything bad or negative. That answer wasn’t good enough. I got pushed. As I dealt an $80-160 game, Player A stopped, standing behind the 5s, and said, “Linda, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I shrugged it off. Later as I went on a break, Player A was heading out to the Sports Book and apologized again. I didn’t understand what the big noise was all about. Player A told me that Player B would have me fired if I wrote anymore. We talked for about five minutes and I went on my way. I spoke with Pete Popovich, Suzie Lederer, and Doug Dalton about this. No one said anything that would even remotely resemble my being fired or reprimanded.

I made the decision to stop writing about it and took down all of the posts the following day. Why? EXPECTATION! I knew I was going to be dealing to Player B on a regular basis and I know how miserable players can make you when you are in the box, especially when they play high limit. They don’t even have to throw cards at you or call you names to make your time spent with them into total living hell.

Here’s the best part: I was pushing into a high limit game and Player B was in the 5s. The question was something like this, Did you get a lot of comments from people about taking down those posts?

My head jerked up. Yes, Player B was looking directly at me. I responded that I did.

Player B replied, “I thought you would.”

EXPECTATION jumps feet first into this scene. Player B had to have known that Player A would say something to me. Player B expected me to do just what I did.

Now I’ve landed on the last rock, just before the jagged shoreline forces me to ponder where to land on the next jump.