August 28, 2006 – 11:29 pm
I think I’ve decided to downgrade poker from a “hobby” to just a casual fun thing to do every once in a while but not get serious about.
For a while now I haven’t been playing hardly at all (maybe a couple times in the last several months), and the times when I have (last Saturday night being the most recent), it just seems like my head really isn’t into the game the way it should be. This is probably due to all the other stuff I have to devote a lot of concentration / mental energy on right now (primarily work stuff).
For a while, when I first got into it, I was playing a lot - online and in person - and reading all kinds of books etc., to the point where I think I was getting pretty decent at it, but lately that has not been the case, and it shows in the last couple games I’ve played, which have probably been some of my worst.
I still like it, and will still play when friends organize a game or whatever, but I think I’ve just decided that (at least for now) it’s not something I’m going to put a lot of time and energy into getting better at, because there isn’t a lot to spare, and what I do have I can think of many other things I’d rather spend it on.
I’m not sure what frightened me more tonight - my horrible poker playing or reading these statistics on Jason’s blog.
December 20, 2005 – 9:21 pm
A couple weeks ago I had what I thought was a brilliant, original idea for a new podcast that I could do where I would do play-by-play commentary on poker games, including pro matches on TV, and pro / high-stakes internet games, and perhaps eventually live games as well, although that may be more difficult because I wouldn’t want to do it while I was playing, but I could take notes and then start recording if I bust out early and go back and record the beginning (based on notes) later.
Anyway, before I actually did anything on this I decided to search around and make sure that no one else had snatched up my brilliant idea before I got to it, and sadly found that they did. I haven’t listened to any of them yet, and I think they are all internet-only coverage of the actual person playing, but still, I don’t know if I want to do it anymore now that I know it’s not unique. Who knows, maybe I’ll listen to them and they’ll stink, and then I might still consider doing it.
Oh well, I guess that I have plenty of other stuff to keep me busy without starting yet another new thing, so for now I probably won’t do it. Maybe someday we’ll get around to doing another episode of our Tythyl podcast.
December 3, 2005 – 3:22 am
Since winning the game that was referenced in my post from last week (although I didn’t intend to bring it up there), I seem to be on a roll as it relates to my poker skills. I guess all the reading I’ve been doing has been paying off, because I really think I am getting better.
Tonight, I played another game with several guys who I usually don’t win against (although I’ve faired decently), and ended up doing pretty well. We played dealer’s choice for a $20 buy in from 8 to 10 pm, after which I was the chip leader with about $53 (so +33), and then a $20 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament at 10pm with ten people, payouts at 120/60/20 for first, second and third. I ended up taking first on that one too, so I’m up a total of $133 for the night.
Dan was kind enough not to bust me by exploiting my so-called “tells”; I don’t remember what place he got, but perhaps he will comment and let you know.
We played this one variation called 3-5-7 towards the end of the dealer’s choice round, which was interesting, although I still don’t really like games with wild cards.
August 27, 2005 – 5:35 pm
…software development doesn’t work out for me, my new backup plan is to be a tournament poker player.
We went up to Chumash casino today for a poker tournament and I ended up making the final table, and taking fifth place overall (after making some dumb mistakes).
Everyone had a pretty good time; Dan got 28th place, so he made money too, and he actually came away with more because he went and played the other tables after he got out.
Phil Gordon is doing a podcast as he plays the 2005 World Series of Poker, including interviews with fellow players, and commentary in between levels about how he’s playing and where he screwed up. Check it out if you’re into that sort of thing.
After posting that last Star Wars thing, it occurred to me that there’s a whole bunch of stuff I wanted to blog about lately but never got around to. Some I will get to in the coming days, others are probably lost forever. Oh, well. I probably won’t catch up tonight either - I need to go win some more fake money at online poker.
