Food, poker

[peterbirks]

A common comment you will hear and read from sustained online and offline poker players who are cutting back on their game, despite their profit, is that they are fed up with spending 16 hours of a day looking at a screen or sitting in the Bellagio, only to go home/go to bed feeling that that's another day out of your life wasted. You can cope when you've chopped it off for a fair bit, but when it's a break-even day (or, worse, a bad loss), you feel that the whole thing is a bit of "wasting your life away".

I was feeling that yesterday when I played a shedload of hands to just about break even after allowing for rakeback and the like. I knew that I had run slightly bad (hitting top full house on the river against a cannnily-played flopped quads was one example, losing with KK to T3off all in preflop was another), but that wasn't the point. Opportunity cost was coming into play. Even if I had won a hundred bucks, I would have felt that it was a day wasted. It would have had to be $500 or more for me to have felt that it was "worthwhile".

This is not a good way to be. At the moment the opportunity cost is about ok. $15 average an hour, I accept it. But I can see the time coming when that will not be enough. And if I can't make that amount (and, as Terrence Chan observes in a recent post, the state of the art in poker has advanced a lot in the past three years. which means that you have to put in more work just to stand still) then I might just cut back and become a "social" player who enjoys his game and is content to break even -- ("it's a cheap hobby").

+++++++++

I bought PokerTracker3 this morning. All a bit of a culture shock after seven years or so with PokerTrackers 1 and 2. The analysis available once again raises the spectre of how much time should be allocated to R&D before it eats into your hourly rate. 10%? 20%? PT3 comes with Poker Ace Heads Up Display already installed (and, as a bonus, I get a free copy of PT2 and PAHUD with my PT3 purchase, which means I can run PT2 on four computers rather than two). I still haven't worked out the aliases, but actually I might keep them separate. The database structure is also completely different, which means that effectively you keep the lot in a single database.

One piece of information now available to me that I didn't see on PT2 was how much better I have done overall on Betfred (IP Network) than on NoIQ (also the IP Network). The former is 8.25bb/Hour over 40,000 hands, while the latter is just 3.92 over 70,000 hands.

I will have to do some research on the PT3 forum to see what joys await me of which I am as yet unaware.

+++++++++++

I ate out three times last week. That's definitely too much, even if the food was relatively healthy (OK, the burger and chips and petit pot at Chez Gerrard on Friday probably doesn't qualify here).

The Friday meet was with the good DY and new acquaintances Dominic Bourke and Elie, old muckas of Mr Young in one of his previous incarnations. Pleasant discussions all round. Elie ia an "Investment manager" and just about confirmed all my prejudices -- albeit in a marvellous charming fashion. But the most entertaining part was of the time that they were talking about selling advertising space in a planned new magazine on Opera.

Lunch on Thursday was at Back To Basics -- this time the three of us (two workmates) had the set tenner menu, and it was great value. Get the bread as well (and a drink) and coffee you have a full meal for £17 that's just about right for lunch.

And 11 new CDs arrived. Woohoo. It's great to play the new CD from James (plus "Best Of"). Surely one of the more unlikely great revivals from the 90s, but they seem to be on top form.

Nick Cave on Friday on Jools was as spectacular as ever. One of his musicians seemed to be planning to do some side-work with ZZ Top.

I bought the Brandi Carlyle album on the strength of her appearance on Jools, and I wasn't disappointed. It may sound a bit MOR to some, but I think it's her voice that sets her apart.

Portishead , Raconteurs, Radiohead, Guillemots, the usual suspects. Irritatingly my Phillips piwece of shit doesn't want to play any CDs with PC tracks on them (in this case, Brandi Carlyle and The Guillemots). Maddening.


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Comments

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

Sweet to know that you had a lovely evening with somebody called "Elie" (did she spell it out for you, or just give you her business card?), and I'm so very pleased that she confirmed all your prejudices in a marvellous charming fashion. When are we going to move to a bijou little place in Bloomsbury, dear heart?

Of course it's entertaining that they're talking about selling advertising space in a planned new magazine on ... insert wank category here.

I can solve that CD thing for you. Get CD ripping software. It's free, and surprising sophisticated (unlike Elie).

As to the poker: it looks like we're moving into the middle age (not to be confused with Middle Earth). What I think you need is a client-side "AI" program that acts like a 'bot in terms of analysis and output, but which doesn't actually play on its own. (This means, I'm assuming, that it doesn't have to act like a short-stacked cretin.)

In other words, what it would do is to weed out the tables you don't want to play on and multi-table across sites on the basis of rakes, plausible opportunities, etc etc.

I'm sure there's a commercially available edition out there.

In the mean time, please feel free to have a giggle with Elie from Advertising.

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

I say "she." He could be,say, Lebanese. But the comment still holds.

Very sweet nevertheless.

I have to get back to talking business with my boss now.

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Elie is indeed Lebanese, and male.

The "table-tracking" software (and player-tracking) is already available. Indeed it's going to be an optional add-on to PT3 with a monthly fee.

I've mentioned this in the past, but the problem with this is that you can spot such games easily, because the waiting list is so long for them. In other words, a good game, if it's a rarity, tends to stop being a good game before you get a seat. Good games on better sites (where there are more fish) stay good for longer.

However, the best bet is to just play a lot and, when you get lucky and a fish arrives, to sit like a limpet at the table until he goes broke or leaves.

PJ

[jaybee66.livejournal.com]

Of course poker is a waste of time. That's why I gave it up. Time is money. You could be flipping burgers for a low but steady guaranteed earner.

However, everyone's a winner at poker. I've yet to meet anyone that loses at the game. As far as I can tell, there is one person somewhere in this world that loses a couple of billion every year to account for all the winners.

I suspect that most poker players (and I do not exclude myself) is an addict of some sort. Replacing their former addiction with poker is probably the lesser of two evils.

Playing poker, buying books and poker paraphernalia, blowing money on eat-outs that you could probably cook better yourself and buying CDs of post-1986 garbage probably keep you off the juice.

Oh and there are an awful lot of singletons. We don't seem to do relationships that well. Addiction, obsession etc. leaves little time for others.

JayBee. xxx

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

That was rather splendidly insightful, JB.

Having just followed up my idiot comment above with an attempt to track down the ex in California just to make sure she's all right, even though I know she's 95% bound not to be, and it would therefore have been a debilitating waste of time even had it not occurred between the hours of three and four in the morning, I can certainly follow your line of argument here.

Should I take up online poker? Should you start writing a lucrative Auntie JB Balms Your Concern column in the Daily Mail?

Who can solve these inscrutable mysteries of the universe?

[(Anonymous)]

I think that decribing a JB post as 'insightful' could be an indication that an Alzheimers test is due.


Titmus