not too up
Feb. 22nd, 2007 12:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksWhen you are not too happy with the world, it's far too easy to sink into either "grumpy old man" mode, or "rage against the machine mode". The alternative is "feeling sorry for yourself mode". A third option is "just shut up, keep quiet, lock the door and hide away for a few days" mode.
But, well, none of these is particularly attractive. Accentuate the positive; that's the ticket. We did get our bonus for 2006 this week, and we did have a very good year. Obviously in publishing our bonuses are mere pennies compared to some of those (but not all) working in the financial services sector, but they are a damned deal higher than the Christmas bonus given to the bloke cleaning the streets, or the freelance poker player.
Not that I really have anything to spend it on. I'll just adopt my version of the Andy Ward "clear the mortgage before everything else". Then again, I haven't even got the mortgage yet.
My best strategy for feeling like this is to clean things up. I managed to put up both the new paintings on the wall yesterday -- no mean feat in the case of one of the pictures, a whopping five feet by two-foot six. I also managed to do my bollocks clearing the UB bonus -- it's the old old story. After giving up in despair at about midnight, I looked at the amopunt left to clear and it was only $2. So, I went downstairs, made a cup of coffee, calmed myself down, and sat back in the same position at the same table. 20 minutes later I'd won $90 of it back. In pure Barry Greenstein mode, I saw this as a $90 win, rather than just some of my $260 loss regained. Maybe this afternoon I'll really get started on cleaning the kitchen. The walls need painting, and my bedroom needs completely redecorating, as does the spare bedroom. There's always something that needs to be done. And I'm utterly shit at getting things like this done. God I wish I wasn't so rubbish at so many life-related things.
The month still looks depressing on the poker front, and I am becoming increasingly convinced that, most of the time, I'm only marginally plus EV at $2-$4 (say, 0.8 per 100) and a merginal loser at $3-$6. I might be a winner at $5-$10, but I haven't played a large enough sample there recently to find out.
What's worrying is that I'm developing a burnt-out feeling. I know that if I put the time aside for the research I could improve those numbers, but, for the first time, I don't feel the motivation so to do. I'd rather watch TV, or practise the piano, or sand down the door, or clean the oven. It's not as if the money is really all that relevant. It's nice, but the whole thing is mainly an intellectual exercise at the moment. If that drive vanishes, any monetary gain just, well, just isn't enough.
But, perhaps this is a result of too much playing on one site. A change of scenery might regenerate a bit of enthusiasm. As would some decent cards.
+++++
I developed some success by treating AK (suited or off-suit) as a drawing hand that hits when I defend the BB against a single raiser. This has worked remarkably well over a fairly short sample. Flat call the raise (from wherever) and check-raise any flop with the exception of Axx or AKx.
If you check-raise then you lead out on the turn. If you are three-bet on the flop, your action is very player dependent.
+++++
February showers bring March flowers? Is that the new global warming mantra? I hope so. Overall, this has been a not-too-happy month. Sometimes I just feel that I am drowning, in life, in stuff, in information; trapped in a life situation that I do and yet do not want to escape. That, I guess, is the mid-life crisis talking. I wish it would shut up.
But, well, none of these is particularly attractive. Accentuate the positive; that's the ticket. We did get our bonus for 2006 this week, and we did have a very good year. Obviously in publishing our bonuses are mere pennies compared to some of those (but not all) working in the financial services sector, but they are a damned deal higher than the Christmas bonus given to the bloke cleaning the streets, or the freelance poker player.
Not that I really have anything to spend it on. I'll just adopt my version of the Andy Ward "clear the mortgage before everything else". Then again, I haven't even got the mortgage yet.
My best strategy for feeling like this is to clean things up. I managed to put up both the new paintings on the wall yesterday -- no mean feat in the case of one of the pictures, a whopping five feet by two-foot six. I also managed to do my bollocks clearing the UB bonus -- it's the old old story. After giving up in despair at about midnight, I looked at the amopunt left to clear and it was only $2. So, I went downstairs, made a cup of coffee, calmed myself down, and sat back in the same position at the same table. 20 minutes later I'd won $90 of it back. In pure Barry Greenstein mode, I saw this as a $90 win, rather than just some of my $260 loss regained. Maybe this afternoon I'll really get started on cleaning the kitchen. The walls need painting, and my bedroom needs completely redecorating, as does the spare bedroom. There's always something that needs to be done. And I'm utterly shit at getting things like this done. God I wish I wasn't so rubbish at so many life-related things.
The month still looks depressing on the poker front, and I am becoming increasingly convinced that, most of the time, I'm only marginally plus EV at $2-$4 (say, 0.8 per 100) and a merginal loser at $3-$6. I might be a winner at $5-$10, but I haven't played a large enough sample there recently to find out.
What's worrying is that I'm developing a burnt-out feeling. I know that if I put the time aside for the research I could improve those numbers, but, for the first time, I don't feel the motivation so to do. I'd rather watch TV, or practise the piano, or sand down the door, or clean the oven. It's not as if the money is really all that relevant. It's nice, but the whole thing is mainly an intellectual exercise at the moment. If that drive vanishes, any monetary gain just, well, just isn't enough.
But, perhaps this is a result of too much playing on one site. A change of scenery might regenerate a bit of enthusiasm. As would some decent cards.
+++++
I developed some success by treating AK (suited or off-suit) as a drawing hand that hits when I defend the BB against a single raiser. This has worked remarkably well over a fairly short sample. Flat call the raise (from wherever) and check-raise any flop with the exception of Axx or AKx.
If you check-raise then you lead out on the turn. If you are three-bet on the flop, your action is very player dependent.
+++++
February showers bring March flowers? Is that the new global warming mantra? I hope so. Overall, this has been a not-too-happy month. Sometimes I just feel that I am drowning, in life, in stuff, in information; trapped in a life situation that I do and yet do not want to escape. That, I guess, is the mid-life crisis talking. I wish it would shut up.
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-22 01:15 pm (UTC)There's good psychological backing for this - something about small achievements producing a virtuous circle. The only way to tackle a job that requires a confidence level of 10 when you feel like shit is to tackle a job that needs a 2 and the egoboost enables you to move on up the scale. It's like that with To Do lists. The trick is to fill them with easy tasks as well as the hard ones. So:
(1) Make Cup of tea
(2) Post birthday card
(3) Finished the Unified Field Theory.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-22 01:23 pm (UTC)The trick with lists (which I always make every Thursday afternoon when I arrive home for my so-called three-day weekend, although none of the weekend ever seems to start before 10pm on Friday, and it seems to finish at 3pm on Sunday) is not only to fill them with things like "sleep" to go with the real tougies, but also to make sure that, if you do something that isn't on the list, you then write it down and tick it. Apparently I am far from alone in this habit.
Now, I've just got a bit of string thoery to dust up, so, if you will excuse me.
Pj
no subject
Date: 2007-02-22 03:06 pm (UTC)Is it the case that, for you, the promise of something good on the horizon is in some ways more satisfying than the actual event when it arrives? Certainly there have been times when I've felt a bit down after receiving a large chunk of money that I was expecting.
What's worrying is that I'm developing a burnt-out feeling.
I know someone who is trying for the one-million-points-in-a-year promotion on Poker Stars, and am convinced that Poker Stars are deliberately trying to burn out some of their best customers so that they don't have to pay out all the accrued bonuses. If you had to keep up the 100,000-points-a-month pace, you wouldn't have time to take up the free entries into major face-to-face tournaments that you would earn through the status...
no subject
Date: 2007-02-22 08:35 pm (UTC)"The month still looks depressing on the poker front, and I am becoming increasingly convinced that, most of the time, I'm only marginally plus EV at $2-$4 (say, 0.8 per 100) and a marginal loser at $3-$6. I might be a winner at $5-$10, but I haven't played a large enough sample there recently to find out."
How much of your marginal results is due to you and how much is due to the reality of the current situation (i.e., tougher games at most sites)? I suspect more of the latter than the former.
If that's the case, I suspect your burnout is a direct result of playing in the tougher games.
Michael
no subject
Date: 2007-02-22 10:22 pm (UTC)Well, I three-tabled on Party tonight, that being only a little faster pace than two-tabling on Ultimate, and there was still to occasional donator to be found. Needless to say the upshot of this was that I did my pieces, Somehow I managed to be $150 down within 25 minutes, which is going it some even for me. I looked at my VPPIP and it was above 25% at all three tables. I thought that I'd felt busy. Anyway, it was one of those sequences of high hands, none of them completing, or getting rivered. Bleeaagh,.
Howver, my general feeling from that sequence (I got back to $106 down after my allotted 300 hands) was that I might still be rather more positive EV than I had previously thought, at least at $2-$4 on Party, just about the highest level that has any liquidity of ring games onthat site these days.
But, yes, the mainreason for any fall in EV would simply be that the players are trickier and tougher. Once I work out which ones are particularly trickier and tougher, I can adapt, but it makes for greater variance and a tougher life. And whn you get calling stations "leading the flock" to your raises pre-flop, you also need some nice cards to appear on the board.
The variance is getting so much higher now that I may even stop doing monthly reports, because I don't think that a month is all that statistically significant these days.
I quite enjoy the livelier games, even if the opponents are tricky and good; but the dead as a doornail games, once the preserve of Pokerstars but now spreading elsewhere, with eight of the 10 players unwilling to commit and hand after hand coming to 1.25 big blinds n total. No, those are really dispiriting. You just have to keep raising, keep stealing, and keep moving so that teh regulars don't catch on to you and start three-betting you rather more liberally. Most of them are fairly ABC and fairly weak-tight, so they are beatable. But, well, not for much, and, my god, it's boring.
PJ
no subject
Date: 2007-02-23 12:32 am (UTC)The limits that you and I play in have become tougher because, in my opinion, very good players that were playing higher have now dropped to our limits due to no liquidity at the limits they once played. Add in less recreational players and it is a different world now, for sure. Frankly one would be better off playing blackjack than playing at limits like 5/10 these days.
I have similar feelings in regards to the livelier games. Playing with good and tricky opponents is fun for me. On the other hand, if I set in a game that is one of the "dead as doornail" games, I get up and leave. It does not provide enough EV and frankly it's boring as hell. I'd rather have my teeth pulled with rusty pliers than playing in those games where 7 out of every 10 hands are Button-SB-BB battles.
It is definitely difficult these days. One almost needs to have 4 or 5 sites where they play, with money on each site, and just look for the best tables when you play. That takes time, though, and can be another enjoyment detriment.
I did try UB for a while, but grew annoyed with it. The 2/4 and 3/6 games weren't bad at all, but I have never seen so many players jumping off the table after 1-2 orbits, especially at 3/6. I guess it was a lot of 1/2 players taking shots at higher limits.
It's funny that you mention the Stars games. Here in the last couple of weeks, the games at 1-2 and 2-4 have softened up and at certain times of the day the 3-6 games have also softened a bit. I think the marketing that Stars has done in Europe is starting to payoff and bring in a lot of players. I have had several instances lately where I was one of only two U.S. players at a table and most of my opponents were from Germany.
Stay away from those time sensitive bonuses and monthly reports and you'll be happier.
Michael
no subject
Date: 2007-02-23 07:23 am (UTC)I suspect I am just running bad at Party at the moment, because when I'm sitting at the tables I don't feel that anyone there islikely to give me any trouble. I'm even pwning the bots or faux-bots (which gives me a curious kind of pleasure, since I can be fairly sure that there's only a machine at the other end of the line). But I do seem to have hit a greater share of (bad) rivers there than I would expect.
Logically, if the good players have dropped down because of lower liquidity at higher levels, then the short-handed games shouldn't be affected so much, because there is still liquidity at the higher levels in short-handed.
Why might this be the case? Is it because good players "like" short-handed? Or might it be because short-handed is much more likely to become heads-up in fairly short order, and heads-up situations in limit are now mathematically analyzable? Or might it be that three of the six players at some of the games all happen to be from the same country, nay, the same town, nay, the same location, nay (perhaps), the same room?
PJ