Smoking, booze and shagging

One thing that has surprised me, as I have waded through a multitude of poker blogs over the past fortnight, is how many of the writers drink and smoke. The only reason this surprises me is that on this little island we tend to think of Americans as teetotal non-smokers. (Overweight teetotal non-smokers, natch!)

I’m not sure why, but perhaps its because of the USA’s public smoking bans (starting to hit the UK), over 21 years old drinking laws, puritan work ethic and suchlike. And also because the English drink so much that we view almost everyone else as booze pussies.

So, it has been nice to read the blogging of other intelligent but indulgent guys with their Guinness, smokes, cigars and whatnot. I like a drink and a cigarette too, although I’m pretty sure that smoking is highly ‘negative EV’.

Anyways, the other thing that has struck me is how many of my fellow poker obsessives have wives or live-in girlfriends. Its not that I imagine poker players can’t get girlfriends, rather that I wonder how on earth they manage to maintain the relationship.

The likes of Iggy, Decker, Hdouble and MeanGene all have full-time jobs, play a ton of poker, write lengthy and frequent blog posts – AND have wives or partners. I don’t know how they square their poker-playing with their loved ones, or when they find time to spend with their loved ones, or when they sleep.

My interest isn’t entirely academic. In my past life (seven months ago) I was in the same situation; living with my long-term partner and playing into the bleary early hours, then sliding carefully into bed at 1am, 2am, 3am and trying not to wake her. Partly because I didn’t want to disturb her sleep and partly ‘cause I didn’t want her to know how late I was actually playing. Then an intense struggle the next morning to get out of bed for work.

All of this left very little time and energy for sex or intimacy, so although there were far bigger issues in that area than my poker, I guess you could argue that the game contributed in a small way to the end of that relationship.

Now, as it happens, I have come out of that situation with some firm opinions on long-term, live-in, monogamous relationships. Simply: they are not for me. I am too private, too selfish, too immature, too irresponsible and too lazy for all that. In short, the game is too big for my emotional bankroll.

I also see few things in life that cause more frustration, thwarted ambition, stress, exhaustion and downright unhappiness than being shackled to one person. And further than that, I simply don’t think there is a human being on this earth (including me) who is fascinating enough to stay interesting for twenty, thirty, forty years of co-habitation and forsaking all others. I have resolved, very firmly, that I will never live with a girl again. I don’t want a significant other – just a series of insignificant others. I recently read a wonderful novel, ‘The Dying Animal’ by Philip Roth, that captured a lot of my feelings.

So to get back to poker, the point is that I am just wishing all you ‘partnered’ pokerbloggers all the luck in the world keeping it all together – although you likely don’t need it as you’re probably better men than me!

The ironic twist to all this is that I am currently simply not playing enough hours - because of a girl. (Jaw drops in amazement).

I’m now seeing a lovely girl who lives about an hour’s drive or train away. We see each other only at weekends, on the whole, which suits me fine. The trouble is that with my weekends invariably booked up, I have to squeeze all my normal socialising into the weeknights. Four or five nights get filled pretty quickly between boozing, playing snooker, occasionally seeing my brother or Dad, and so on. Before you know it, I have either one night or no nights when I just go home from work and sit on my arse and play a decent session. So I’m typically playing just an hour or two either side of midnight – not enough hours when you are playing well and running good – and possibly missing out on a lot of the more recreational players in the early evenings and at weekends.

Right now I have no easy answer to this. I really don’t have much of an emotional investment in the girl I am seeing, and I have no idea how long it will last. I know that if and when it ends, my main feeling (besides guilt if I end up hurting her) will be ‘Cool, now I can put some more hours in’.

I probably ought to force myself to have a week where I don’t go out in the evening at all, or maybe just once. I might simply take a day off work to get me a nice big Omaha ovadose.

Whatever. I did get nearly six hours in on Monday, a public holiday, after packing the girl off home and thereby declining the opportunity to go with her, laze by the pool and have sex. (Not bragging, just indicating where poker fits in my priorities).

It was an okay five and a half hours, split more or less in half around dinner. In the first I finished down one dollar thanks to a chump mistake. A $45 chump mistake. Not the biggest deal in the world, but too big considering the size of game I play, my goals, and the fact that – did I mention? – it was a CHUMP MISTAKE! Getting wedded to the ‘under-full’ on the flop is exactly what my opponents do, thereby handing me their money on a velvet cushion. It is not supposed to be what I do. It happened because I was annoyed at having just blown back an early profit. Get over it, dickhead!

I clawed back the deficit, before eating and having an internal coaching session. Then had an $81 win thanks to somebody handing me their money in a similar fashion. Now that’s what IS supposed to happen, and is how I make my money in these games. The guy raised me all-in with the Queen high flush when I had the suited Ace. I encourage this sort of thing with my frequent pre-flop raising; sooner or later somebody thinks ‘Well he can’t have really hit this flop/turn/river’. I seized a few other pots, missed a few cheap draws, and generally bobbled along at break-even level for the remainder of the time, underlining the nature of big-bet play. You gotta be on the right side of the big confrontations.

Finally, a question. What does ‘IGHN’ mean? I see it in blogs after somebody busts out of a tournament. So far my best guess is ‘I Go Home Naked’, and that can’t be right. Somebody please let me know.

I did go home naked once (not from a poker game) but that’s a different story.