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Holiday In The Sun
Apr. 30th, 2009 09:03 amThese places are wasted on me. I know I should be eagerly rushing down to the poolside for another bloody day in paradise, saying how fantastic it is, and trying to make people envious. And then all that happens is that I finish breakfast, walk out to look at the Mediterranean in an (admittedly remarkably pleasant) 20-degree breeze, and say to myself; "Cor, it's a bit bright. I think I'll go back to my room".
The fact is, like many an old codger, I get most of my pleasure these days from seeing other people being childishly happy, because I've lost the ability to experience such childish pleasure myself, and I miss it. When you are on holiday on your own, there's little chance of any kind of enjoyment but your own. For me, that distinctly isn't sitting by a pool doing nothing. I can manage maybe an hour before being bored to tears.
Also, being on your own, hiring a car and driving out somewhere is not an option. I'm sure that some people on holiday alone can do that; and maybe in my 20s I might have had the courage. But I find driving nerve-wracking enough in London, let alone in France, and with no navigator to boot. A crash would be nigh-on certain in my "worst-case scenario" mind.
And before you start mocking having a worst-case scenario frame of mind, I'd like to point out that it was the absence of this, the blind optimism and sheep-like attitude of bankers and regulators, that got us all into this economic shit in the first place.
So, all that leaves is another walk, which I intend to undertake this afternoon, when, by current weather patterns, it's likely to cloud over a bit and become slightly more amenable to long walks and photo-taking.
I won't head up to the EPT today, because it will really be much more of the same. Tomorrow the field will be thinner.
Some of my opposition yesterday: I can't remember the names of the American and Italian youngsters, although I'm sure they would be well-documented on the poker databases.
Juha Helppi. He actually wasn't at the table that long. Didn't say much, and left in some disgust at the hand that knocked him out (which, to be fair, he played absolutely perfectly). But he wasn't disagreeable.
One positive takeaway I've got from this experience is that I learnt an awful lot in eight hours. I mean, a hell of a lot on how to play deep-stack slow-level tournaments. Almost enough to the extent that I may waste the rest of my life trying to qualify for another.
Dave "Superman" Saab, winner of one of the APT events in 2008. Very impressive player who showed how to play a smallish stack that wasn't yet a short stack. Superb understanding of the concept of leverage, but prone (to my eyes) to being a serial disbeliever and also prone to trying to make "clever" plays that are probably minus EV, even for him. Caught out St Andre in a 10k bluff that entailed Saab calling for 40% of his stack. St Andre shrugged, turning over his hand and saying "you win". Saab triumphantly tables his hand shouting "ACE HIGH!!!", at which point the dealer points out that St Andre actually has a pair of threes. Whoops.
Where many novices go wrong is that they see players like Saab or Mineri building up a stack and assume that this is how it is done. They then try to copy it, and, of course, they get fucked in the process. I am at least wiser than this. I can learn from the style without trying to copy it. For the moment, the brutalist over-shoves might lack subtlety and might mark me down to much of the table as a weak player. But that's because, in these tournaments, that is what I am. I can't outplay these guys at their own game, but as soon as the blinds and the antes kicked in, I could go for the brute force approach and hope to get lucky (or stay lucky) when called. Any disparaging comments would be water off a duck's back. Indeed, they would be welcome, because it would be a sign that I was doing something right.
And there's no shame in saying that you are outclassed. These guys had paid E10,600 in cash to play. A few were invited (St Andre) and a few were rich (one guy at our table owned restaurants, the first guy on my immediate right was a property developer and played in a GBP20k sit-down cash game in Knightsbridge; I was better than both of these guys), but half the field at this level is going to consist of people who have proved their mettle at the lower levels. In Darwinian terms, I was facing the best.
Two of the youngsters at my table during the day (btw, I had four different people sitting on my immediate right during the day, surely unusual for day 1!) were ex-Magic champions from the early 2000s. I really curse that fucking game.
Philippe St Andre. No-one at the table recognized him, which must have been unusual for the man (and possibly rather welcome), since he captained the French rugby side in the mid 1990s and is now coach of a side abroad. It would be a bit like, er, Ian Shearer sitting down in a game in the UK and someone asking him "so, what do you do, Ian?", and no-one else at the table thinking the question unusual.
++++++++
My second takeaway from this, and perhaps one that is perhaps not quite so welcome, is that I realized that I would quite like to have several million euros. I mean this not in a vague kind of "I wish I could win the lottery, but, then again, I never play it", kind of way. I mean it more in a "you don't really have any point in your life at the moment; it's about time you created one."
Playing live tournaments isn't the way I would like to get it, though. I really would hate this hotel-to-hotel kind of existence. It's ridiculously expensive, it's not as nice as home, and you can never remember where you put the few things that you have to hand, because everything that you actually want is back in London. I'm happy to have seen these places, I guess, but I wouldn't make the effort to visit them. For that I would need the push or shove of someone who really enjoyed new things, and then, as I said at the beginning, I could gain the pleasure second-hand. I'm convinced that much of the joy of parenthood is the joy parents get from seeing their kids discover new things.
_________________
The fact is, like many an old codger, I get most of my pleasure these days from seeing other people being childishly happy, because I've lost the ability to experience such childish pleasure myself, and I miss it. When you are on holiday on your own, there's little chance of any kind of enjoyment but your own. For me, that distinctly isn't sitting by a pool doing nothing. I can manage maybe an hour before being bored to tears.
Also, being on your own, hiring a car and driving out somewhere is not an option. I'm sure that some people on holiday alone can do that; and maybe in my 20s I might have had the courage. But I find driving nerve-wracking enough in London, let alone in France, and with no navigator to boot. A crash would be nigh-on certain in my "worst-case scenario" mind.
And before you start mocking having a worst-case scenario frame of mind, I'd like to point out that it was the absence of this, the blind optimism and sheep-like attitude of bankers and regulators, that got us all into this economic shit in the first place.
So, all that leaves is another walk, which I intend to undertake this afternoon, when, by current weather patterns, it's likely to cloud over a bit and become slightly more amenable to long walks and photo-taking.
I won't head up to the EPT today, because it will really be much more of the same. Tomorrow the field will be thinner.
Some of my opposition yesterday: I can't remember the names of the American and Italian youngsters, although I'm sure they would be well-documented on the poker databases.
Juha Helppi. He actually wasn't at the table that long. Didn't say much, and left in some disgust at the hand that knocked him out (which, to be fair, he played absolutely perfectly). But he wasn't disagreeable.
One positive takeaway I've got from this experience is that I learnt an awful lot in eight hours. I mean, a hell of a lot on how to play deep-stack slow-level tournaments. Almost enough to the extent that I may waste the rest of my life trying to qualify for another.
Dave "Superman" Saab, winner of one of the APT events in 2008. Very impressive player who showed how to play a smallish stack that wasn't yet a short stack. Superb understanding of the concept of leverage, but prone (to my eyes) to being a serial disbeliever and also prone to trying to make "clever" plays that are probably minus EV, even for him. Caught out St Andre in a 10k bluff that entailed Saab calling for 40% of his stack. St Andre shrugged, turning over his hand and saying "you win". Saab triumphantly tables his hand shouting "ACE HIGH!!!", at which point the dealer points out that St Andre actually has a pair of threes. Whoops.
Where many novices go wrong is that they see players like Saab or Mineri building up a stack and assume that this is how it is done. They then try to copy it, and, of course, they get fucked in the process. I am at least wiser than this. I can learn from the style without trying to copy it. For the moment, the brutalist over-shoves might lack subtlety and might mark me down to much of the table as a weak player. But that's because, in these tournaments, that is what I am. I can't outplay these guys at their own game, but as soon as the blinds and the antes kicked in, I could go for the brute force approach and hope to get lucky (or stay lucky) when called. Any disparaging comments would be water off a duck's back. Indeed, they would be welcome, because it would be a sign that I was doing something right.
And there's no shame in saying that you are outclassed. These guys had paid E10,600 in cash to play. A few were invited (St Andre) and a few were rich (one guy at our table owned restaurants, the first guy on my immediate right was a property developer and played in a GBP20k sit-down cash game in Knightsbridge; I was better than both of these guys), but half the field at this level is going to consist of people who have proved their mettle at the lower levels. In Darwinian terms, I was facing the best.
Two of the youngsters at my table during the day (btw, I had four different people sitting on my immediate right during the day, surely unusual for day 1!) were ex-Magic champions from the early 2000s. I really curse that fucking game.
Philippe St Andre. No-one at the table recognized him, which must have been unusual for the man (and possibly rather welcome), since he captained the French rugby side in the mid 1990s and is now coach of a side abroad. It would be a bit like, er, Ian Shearer sitting down in a game in the UK and someone asking him "so, what do you do, Ian?", and no-one else at the table thinking the question unusual.
++++++++
My second takeaway from this, and perhaps one that is perhaps not quite so welcome, is that I realized that I would quite like to have several million euros. I mean this not in a vague kind of "I wish I could win the lottery, but, then again, I never play it", kind of way. I mean it more in a "you don't really have any point in your life at the moment; it's about time you created one."
Playing live tournaments isn't the way I would like to get it, though. I really would hate this hotel-to-hotel kind of existence. It's ridiculously expensive, it's not as nice as home, and you can never remember where you put the few things that you have to hand, because everything that you actually want is back in London. I'm happy to have seen these places, I guess, but I wouldn't make the effort to visit them. For that I would need the push or shove of someone who really enjoyed new things, and then, as I said at the beginning, I could gain the pleasure second-hand. I'm convinced that much of the joy of parenthood is the joy parents get from seeing their kids discover new things.
_________________
