Being a Goat

This is a “Sunday Story”. There’s no politics today, just a story about the World Series of Poker – and being a “goat”.

Goat Hood

I was a coach for over forty years. I coached wrestling, cross country; and for forty years I coached track.  Over the time, I learned a lot about how my athletes dealt with pressure, from their first competition at a dual meet, to the State and even National levels.  One of the lessons from all of those competitors was that everyone needs a “goat”.  

There’s a lot of recent definitions of “goat”.  Maurice Greene, world record holder and top US sprinter of the 1990’s (two Olympic Gold Medals, five World Championship Golds) had the letters tattooed on his shoulder.  Who wants to be a “goat”?  According to Greene he was the Greatest of All Time – the GOAT!!  Michael Johnson, Carl Lewis, and the soon to be introduced Usain Bolt would all take exception to his Goat-Hood, but those Gold Medals clinking around his neck, for that moment, were pretty convincing.  So was his then-world record time of 9.79 for the 100 meters.  That’s pretty GOAT-ly.

NFL 49’ers Jerry Rice and soccer legend (and now Miami player) Lionel Messi also have GOAT tattoos of one kind or another.  Greene was the best in his event, and inarguably so were Rice and Messi.  

Companion Goat

But I’m talking about a different kind of goat, one more closely related to the four-legged, hard-headed, sure-footed animal (not those weird fainting goats).  In horse racing, the thoroughbreds are the very definition of “high strung”.  They are always “on the edge” of training and temperament.  Every change makes a difference, from the jockey to the trainer to the track.  And every successful thoroughbred learns to adapt to new stables, new noises and new smells.   Good trainers find some way to “normalize” the situation.  

If there’s plenty of money, maybe the trainer brings along a stable horse, one that the racer is used to.  But another “trick” is to use a different animal as a stable mate.  Back at home, the thoroughbred lives with an actual goat in the stall.  Then when it’s time for the “big race”, the goat goes along for the ride.  The goat’s “job” is to keep the horse calm, to make things feel like “at home”.

So as a track coach when I qualified a single athlete to the Regional, State, or even the National meet; I always took a “goat”.  Their job was to enjoy the ride, hang out and warm up with the “Horse”, and  keep things calm in a highly charged championship environment.  It also let me be the coach, rather than a split coach/goat.  That made my job easier, the trip more enjoyable for everyone, and it let the “goat” see what the “big leagues” of competition were all about.  Someday maybe he (or she) would need their own goat.

Tournament Poker

I’m not a card player, but we once had a poker tournament as a fund-raiser for our track team. It was the smokiest room ever. That’s where I learned the basics about what’s called “Texas Hold-em”.  

It’s seven-card poker. Each player is dealt two cards face down.  Then there is a round of betting.  Next, three cards are placed face up on the table.  All the players can combine their two down cards with the three on the table to make their hand.  Another round of betting occurs.  Then “the turn”, a fourth card is placed up on the table, followed by more betting and a fifth card, “the river” is placed up.  That completes the seven cards for seven-card poker, two down, five up.  A Final round of betting, and the best hand wins.

Tournament poker isn’t the wild-wild west kind of card betting with money and whiskey on the table (and a pistol underneath).  In tournament poker you “buy in”, and get a number of chips to play.  The tournament then goes on until one player has chips left.  He (or she) is the winner of the tournament.  It’s kind of like Monopoly – the winner has all the Monopoly money – the chips.

World Series (WSOP)

I got a call from my nephew Chris the other day.  He was in Las Vegas (he sent me a photo of fireworks there on the Fourth of July), and he loves tournament poker. But I didn’t know that he entered in the World Series of Poker – Main Event.  There are over 10,000 participants in the tournament, each with a buy-in of $10,000 ($100 million total).  It’s not winner-take-all, the winner gets $12 million. The rest of the prize money is divided so that if you make the top 1500 players or so, you get at least $15000.  That pays for your “buy-in” and expenses. The longer you last in the tournament after that, the more you get.

So Chris was in Vegas, by himself, in the World Series of Poker. It’s the biggest poker tournament of the season, a tournament so big it goes on for a total of ten days.   He didn’t need advice about poker (at least not from me), what he needed was just someone to share his experience, talk through his decisions, and just be that other person “in the stall” to smooth things out. Chris needed a goat.

He first contacted me on July 10th.  He’d already been playing for a couple of days, and there were  “only” 1520 left in the tournament.  That number turned out to be critical:  the first level of the “winning” $15000 was 1507.  Get to that, and the entry costs were paid and he was making money.

In the Stall

We talked about the same things I would say to my athletes.  Sure there were the technical aspects of the game, but there were also all of the issues created by days of focus and concentration.  Tournament poker is about the cards, but it’s also about reading the other players, and determining when to “…hold’em or fold-em” (thanks Kenny Rogers).  Sometimes you might even have the best hand, but it’s not worth risking all of your chips (going “all-in”).  And sometimes you have no choice.  After all, it’s called “gambling”. 

So my key words were “focus and the goal”.  Keep focus for games that lasted for hours, often until the early morning hours, and a tournament that lasts for days.   And keep “your eye on the prize”.  Sure it’d be nice to win $12 million.  But the longer you could stay at the table with chips, the higher up the “prize money” chart you’d go.  Advancement and survival;  that’s the goal.

Paying Out

It went on for three more days. Chris played the “small ball” game, folding a lot, taking chances when he had to, and building his chips carefully.  And we texted and talked at breaks.  He let me in on the experience of his poker competition, a whole different world to me.

Like all of those other National contests, it was a competition. Chris didn’t make the “final table”, a guaranteed cool million.  But he did end up 102nd, the top one percent of the tournament, and earned a $67,700 prize check.  He’s happy with the money.  But, he’s a competitor, a “Horse”. He wanted to go further; for the money, but even more, for the game.

He’ll go back, I’m sure. He’ll use his experience to improve his game.  And it’s still a card game; in the end, how the cards fall determines a lot in poker. Like any competition, you can’t control “all the variables”. Sometimes, you just go “card dead”. Luck plays a role. But when he does return to Vegas, I hope he needs another “text-goat”.  It was a fun ride.

The Sunday Story Series

Author: Marty Dahlman

I'm Marty Dahlman. After forty years of teaching and coaching track and cross country, I've finally retired!!! I've also spent a lot of time in politics, working campaigns from local school elections to Presidential campaigns.