Achievements
Aug. 20th, 2005 06:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksSo, Andy Ward wastes five hours of his Saturday winning a grand in a PLO 8oB tournament? Pah! I mock this! I wave my private parts at it! I scoff in scoffulous ways unmentioned even in the Encyclopaedia of Scoffing (2nd and Revised Edition). For I have truly mastered greatness today. Yes, I have put a tile up in the bathroom and I have successfully put down that squidgy rubbery sealant between the tiles and the bath.
And as if that wasn't enough, he continued in scoffulating mode, I played three hours of $5-$10 while simultaneously putting up shelving. Okay, it was a slow game (with perhaps a couple of players working in collusion, but they were so bad that they lost anyway), but I make that a pretty corking brace of "got dones" for a Saturday.
In fact, I've just left that game, which was a heartbreaking decision. But if you play for three hours, and the maniacs are still there, but you are beginning to get tired and you have other things to do, should you stay in the game or not? I mean, games like that are not two a penny (there were 18 on the waiting list), but if you start staying in games even though you don't feel like playing, just because it is a very good game, are you not sliding down some kind of slippery path? I mean, it might as well be a job, mightn't it?
I dunno, I guess that I'll regret leaving it when I'm sitting down tomorrow and every game seems a rockfest, but at the moment, well, I'd rather watch TV, to be frank.
And as if that wasn't enough, he continued in scoffulating mode, I played three hours of $5-$10 while simultaneously putting up shelving. Okay, it was a slow game (with perhaps a couple of players working in collusion, but they were so bad that they lost anyway), but I make that a pretty corking brace of "got dones" for a Saturday.
In fact, I've just left that game, which was a heartbreaking decision. But if you play for three hours, and the maniacs are still there, but you are beginning to get tired and you have other things to do, should you stay in the game or not? I mean, games like that are not two a penny (there were 18 on the waiting list), but if you start staying in games even though you don't feel like playing, just because it is a very good game, are you not sliding down some kind of slippery path? I mean, it might as well be a job, mightn't it?
I dunno, I guess that I'll regret leaving it when I'm sitting down tomorrow and every game seems a rockfest, but at the moment, well, I'd rather watch TV, to be frank.
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timing
Date: 2005-08-20 05:20 pm (UTC)Staying With The Maniacs
Date: 2005-08-21 04:15 am (UTC)Well for me poker is a job, and a full-time one. But even if it's just recreation, you still want to put yourself in a position to make the most money possible. One thing Barry Greenstein mentions in his great new book, An Ace on the River, which so many donkeys on 2+2 don't seem to like because they think its fluff content too high (but really because they can't tell the diff between fluff and gold), is that the way to make lots of money is to play when others are playing recklessly. He says that the right thing to do is to stay as long as it takes to get the money. Even though I don't like to pull very long online shifts and usually play 2 shifts per day, the games really aren't that great often so I agree 100% with Barry's comments and usually won't leave any game that is very good with maniacs who are capable of blowing lots of dough and continuing to rebuy. Staying in these situations as long as necessary to make the maximum might be all that keeps you afloat when experiencing a bad run later. So I would urge you to just sit out one round, walk around and get a pot of tea and just reinvigorate yourself to keep playing and taking the loot.
BluffTHIS!
Re: Staying With The Maniacs
Date: 2005-08-21 08:47 am (UTC)Well, this is the big philosophical question. Because "the most money possible" is not necessarily equal to "the most happiness possible". If I don't really need that money, and I don't feel like playing, then, rationally, the right thing for me to do is leave the game. If I stay, just because it is a good game, but I am not enjoying myself, then in life-value terms, I am making a mistake.
I think your view is coloured by the fact that poker is your income.
However, I agree that the "walk around for 10 minutes or so" is, sometimes, a valid alternative. But what if it's 1am, and you are getting really tired and ratty, but the loose guy is still there losing money? A "walk round" won't reinvigorate you. I reckon that if you do not have the courage to stand up and go to bed, and say to yourself "there are more important things than staying in a game just because it is good", then, if you are a recreational player you have fucked up. You must be able to walk away from a good game, or you are in danger of turning into one of the miserable old gits at the Vic. Anyone can walk away from a bad game; it's having the strength to walk away from a good one that shows you are not heading down the route mentioned by the poker player in Andy Bellin's Poker Nation, where all of life is thought of in terms of "I could be making fifty bucks an hour if I were playing poker instead of doing this".
But what is the fifty bucks for? To spend.