I cringe a little every time a WSOP bracelet is awarded; one more I didn’t get to see in person. But I cringe more for some than for others.

I missed Mike Matusow’s bracelet in the Deuce to Seven Lowball. And since this WSOP will be the final chapter in Mikey’s book, I would have loved watching this one from the bleachers. Of course the Poker Shrink was there to record the details. And I read every hand and every interview. But it’s not quite the same thing as being there. Mikey also made the final table in $10K Omaha hi/lo and judging from the live reports, he was almost literally wired for sound. It seemed like every other entry quoted the lyrics of one of Mike’s poker “songs.”

Since Mike started playing the WSOP in 1997, he’s made a final table every year except two. In 1998 he didn’t make a final table, but instead was one of three backers to pick Scotty Nguyen to win the WSOP Championship. And in 2007, he came close three times with 11th, 15th, and 16th place finishes. He was so mad at how he played the main event that year, he wanted a second chance. So he went across the street and came in second in the WPT Bellagio Cup III that same week.

And while I don’t know Vanessa Selbst personally, I’ve seen her in the field a number of times and I really like her game. Back when NBC picked their Heads-Ups contestants, one of my chief gripes was that they didn’t select Selbst. NBC went out of their way to include some of the younger players that had honed their skill online. But in the end they just went with the boys – even though Selbst had made the semi-finals of the WSOP Heads-Up and another final table last year. So this year she got her first WSOP bracelet, completely dominating the $1500 Pot Limit Omaha field. And she again made the semi-finals of the WSOP Heads-Up (admittedly after putting bad beats on both of the Mizrachis). If NBC doesn’t pick her up this year, it will just confirm the worst about their criteria for selecting women players.

And then of course there’s Barry. When I was about to accept my job offer in Austin this summer, I got this weird premonition. I thought, if I take this job, I’m going to miss seeing Barry Greenstein’s next bracelet. And that premonition came true when he won his Razz bracelet last week.

Early in poker’s growth cycle, Barry donated his tournament wins to charity. The cash games were really his bread and butter – so he viewed his high variance tournament cashes as disposable income that could be used for a higher purpose. But with many of the big cash games drying up and with Barry’s support of one of my favorite sties, PokerRoad, he’s now in a position where be must financially rely on tournament cashes.

One of the many things I admire about Greenstein is his unflinching realism. In one of his audio blogs, Barry discussed how challenging it was for a player to carve out a life primarily playing tournaments – and how challenged he felt facing that prospect. So I suspect he was under some pressure going into this year’s WSOP. But pressure is apparently one more thing Greenstein can handle and I’m happy to see he’s getting the job done.

Barry replied to an email telling me it was time to “get into the real world” and wishing me luck in my new job. But the world is only as real as you make it. And poker doesn’t have the exclusive on delusion or self-destructive optimism any more than the financial world has a lock on objective behavior – as the subprime crisis demonstrated in spades.

I know plenty of players that live in the fantasy world of poker, but Barry isn’t one of them. And I suspect that’s why he’s still in the game. And I’m not sure my world is any more real working a 9-to-5 in Austin than it was strutting through the tables in Vegas.

In fact recently, my world has been more like Wild Kingdom than Wall Street. Our office is in the Texas Hill Country where there are more deer than people. In my first week I saw a deer poop up close – which was pretty cool in a South Park-esque kind of way. In my second week, I watched one pee for what seemed like ten minutes. But in my fourth week, a doe walked by with little tiny hooves sticking out of her backside. She was strolling along while in the process of giving birth. The boyz in the office were semi-grossed out – but I thought it was awesome. Last week I saw the doe with two jumpy, playful fawns. I watched from the deck, only 20 feet from her, as she nursed her young. And then they were off.

And maybe that is the real world. All the rest is our construction.

Photo notes: Mike Matusow in Aruba (2005), Vanessa Selbst WSOP (2007), Barry Greenstein WSOP (2007)