I found free MONEY…and the KID IS BACK
I feel like a sadistic madman that I have an incredible story to tell. First, for all that followed the boomer, life is grand. I have a gorgeous 5 month old that took me off the poker felt, and a darling 2 year old who I adore. Both great reasons to withdraw from my passion. That and Money. I took a new gig and thank heaven and crushing it - making more money in 6 months than I have in any year - going very well.
John McCain and legalized gambling
Well US election season is upon us and while gambling isn’t the most pressing issue - I can think of a few more important ones - it’s finally surfaced in the campaign coverage.
I ran across an interesting series of articles on John McCain’s ties to the Native casino industry. I’m no McCain supporter, far from it, but I thought I’d post these if people were interested in his history with the gaming business.
Apparently he’s a gambler himself, though not a poker player - he prefers the craps tables.
Hello again
I haven’t written in a few weeks because I have been on an epic journey. My husband and I are moving from Chicago to San Diego (let me know if you know of any good games there, especially PLO). We took a two week road trip accross the country to California and then left from there for a five week trip to Malaysia and India. I am writing this from Amritsar, India where the Sikhs have a beautiful temple. We are keeping a blog of our trip at sandmtrip.wordpress.com, if any of you are interested in checking it out. It doesn’t have anything to do with poker, but it has been a fun way to document our adventures.
I’m good at Omaha? (not really)
For a month, I’m playing only heads-up poker for cash games. I was getting really burned out on 6-max poker, and faced with the alternative of trying full-ring or heads-up, I opted for the latter. Heads-up really is a wonderful game, the swings are manic but the continuous decision-making keeps the boredom at bay and allows you to focus. I often felt that I quickly settled into a rut with 6-max, and started opening more tables and playing even more mechanically. I can’t play more than 3 tables simultaneously with heads-up, and although my FPP rate is far lower my winrate is higher than it’s ever been. HU is really about making adjustments, much more than full-ring or 6-max. I think people who say HU is 90% metagame are overstating it but “playing the player” certainly has a much bigger role.
WSOP Horse
As most of you know already, ESPN this past Tuesday aired 2 hours of the 50k Horse event. I was eagerly awaiting this show because I love it when they show something other than No Limit Holdem and I wanted to see this star-studded packed final table. Also, horse is an amazing game and my favorite form of poker to play. When this final table was happening I had heard about the raucous atmosphere going on but what I saw on ESPN blew me away and shocked me.
How bad do you want it?
OK, so it has been a loooooooooong time since I wrote anything. There is a good reason for this. I doubted anyone was interested in how bad I was running. Nobody wants to hear how my bankroll was destroyed by coolers, bad beats, and just plain bad plays on my part. Let’s just say it was pretty ugly. I was down in the dumps and back at the microstaked and I had to ask myself how bad I really wanted to be a winning poker player.
Missing Poker.. And New Online Cash Out Options
I just returned from 8 days in Shanghai, China.. which was quite the experience to say the least. My brother was marrying his Chinese bride and we all flew out for the celebration. If you ever happen to find yourself on a plane to China.. a few tips: Don’t travel in the summer- insane humidity- worse than Florida- and the pollution didn’t help, pack snacks- the novelty of the food took 5 days to wear off- I would have paid $100 for a cheeseburger on day 6, pack tissues, and don’t plan on driving while there- traffic rules are merely a suggestion and do not apply.
Friend or Foe
While I was in Vegas for almost all of June, I met the nicest lady. She was a Persian woman who lives in Germany, and she and I quickly became friendly. She didn’t speak much English, so I helped her book a flight to see her family in the US. She invited my husband and me to stay with her if we ever visited Germany. I am not fortunate enough to have a big group of people that I travel with. When I travel around playing cards, relationships like the one I had with this woman become very important. They are the people I call when I’m tired of eating alone, need a ride to the airport or advice on my play, and they’re the people I’ll sweat for a long final table.
Interest
As most people know, banks make their money by investing customers’ money. They use fancy calculations to decide how little money they can keep on hand for people that come in wanting to withdrawal. The rest is then invested at a higher interest rate than they pay their customers.
Negative EV Hours
I listen to all of Bart Hanson’s Cash Plays podcasts on pokerroad (most are pretty good - check out the Samoleous interview if you haven’t), and one of the shows had him discussing the idea of negative EV hours with a psychologist.
The basic gist of the idea was that a lot of poker players focus on logging hours no matter the circumstances, when oftentimes playing when you’re in a bad mood or when there are no good games going is giving you diminishing returns to the point where you would actually make more money by just not playing.
