With the football team down by a point in the fourth quarter, the coach had to come up with a play to convert a critical fourth-and-one situation. He called a quick hand-off to the bruising fullback. Normally used only as a blocker, the big fullback took the handoff and immediately met opposition from a hungry linebacker who'd broken through the line unchecked. The fullback kept his legs churning, leaned forward and limped his way to a one yard gain. After a measurement, it turned out to be just enough to move the chains.

Several plays later a spectacular diving catch by a speedy wide receiver was followed by a long field goal to win. These later highlights made most folks forget that seemingly unremarkable fourth down grind for a measly one-yard gain. While the wide receiver, quarterback, and kicker were being lauded as the game's heroes, the burly fullback strode into the locker room without much attention or fanfare. The coach knew, though, that the biggest play of the game was not its sexiest highlight. His tough fullback fighting for an extra inch of yardage was more critical than the diving catch or other awe-inspiring feats that followed.

We often fall into a similar trap at the poker felt. Influenced by televised poker that emphasizes huge bluffs and bold all-ins, we tend to measure our success on the success of our quick big scores. We think that it is huge double-ups and key bluffs that drive our game, so we sit back and wait for situations to present themselves where we can make the dramatic play.

We focus on setting a big trap when we flop the nuts, or a squeeze play to bluff out two players at once and pick up a goodly amount of chips. Just like football fans who value a beautiful diving catch more than a tough run up the middle to secure a first down, we tend to undervalue the importance of stealing blinds, semi-bluffing to secure small pots, and using position to pick up a few easy chips. If we were honest with ourselves and accurately measured our chip flow, we'd see that playing smart poker to secure the boring and mundane pots is more important than dramatic ploys in the long run.

Playing coin-flip poker is not profitable. Statistics tell you that you'll break even in the long-run doing these over and over again. Subtract the casino's rake and the tips to dealers in cash games, and coin flips are suddenly a losing situation.

The best time to get your money into a race is when it is not really your money at all. Instead, what you should aim to do is focus on winning the non-sexy small pots. Pile your chip stack incrementally higher by picking up dead money in the middle by using solid poker to steal blinds and antes.

Use position to pick up smallish pots by firing out after a ragged flop. Then, when you do push your chips to the middle with your pocket pair squaring off against Big Slick, you are essentially free rolling the 50-50 situation. After all, you are using their money to fuel your all-in.

It is fine for casual sports fans to drool over the spectacular feats that are replayed on Sports Center. It does no harm to watch poker on TV and become starry-eyed when they show innumerable huge bluffs. When you belly-up to the poker felt to play, be certain to shed the mentality that the game is won or lost on fancy plays.

Forget about looking for spots to make sexy plays that you can brag to your poker buddies about later. Celebrate your small wins. Focus on playing solid and smart poker to steadily build your chip stack and you'll become a much bigger force at the tables.

Now go make it happen.

John Carlisle is a National Certified Counselor with a Master's degree in Counseling Psychology from West Virginia University. Contact John at carlisle14@hotmail.com.