Novice or Hustler?

This is the question that Matt Duss from the excellent blog What is the War? asks of me after a recent Seattle poker game with him, Rob Farley of Lawyers Guns Money, and several other people. The first game was terrible. I was the first out. As the other players continued to play, I started drinking. Which is the reason that I won the second game. You see, I had the great misfortune to grow up a Lutheran. And, among other things, what that does is to put a great deal of inhibitions within a person. The first game when I was sober I didn't have the guts to really play. A little alcohol, and what can go wrong with a little alcohol, changed everything. Second game, all over it. Now of course, good cards made a difference too. But don't underestimate what northern Europeans have used for centuries to let their humanity out of the dour bag of their culture--alcohol.