Mostly faithful

No poker last night (I played some shit-hot pool and got drunk instead), so a chance to catch up on non-poker life.

On Friday my ‘probationary’ period at work was extended. (This is where for your first, say, three months you are on a probationary contract with slightly fewer rights and can be axed at short notice). I wasn’t entirely surprised. Another three months.

One boss said I sometimes gave the impression of being ‘ambivalent’ about the job. You don’t say! Of course, in reality I am not ambivalent at all; I hate it, and would/will be out of there the moment I decide I can make a living playing poker, or the moment I find something rewarding and right for me. Or, more likely, the moment they sack me. I sometimes think my internet use and laziness is an unconscious self-sabotage tactic designed to take a hard decision out of my hands.

Boy Genius wrote yesterday that he had signed up for an internet dating service, and recently I did the same. I had been on there as a non-paying trial member for a while and had received contact from a couple of rather good-looking girls, but you can’t read the messages or make any contact unless you pay up. So, I duly did. Or, actually, my ex did it for me since I have no useable credit card these days. (She has used the site a bit and had some fun!)

Anyway, my responses to those girls have yet to draw a reply, which is mildly surprising and irritating since they contacted me in the first place. I may be cutting my own throat somewhat since I put that I was after ‘fun’ from the pulldown menu as opposed to the usual ‘romance and relationship’ option that almost everyone chooses. I also selected ‘Mostly’ in the ‘Are you faithful?’ box. Hell, I might change that one, since I only put ‘mostly’ due to my one affair that time, and because at the time I selected that response I wasn’t intending to really use the site at all.

Anyways, beyond that I have had one brief chat with a real stunner who I hope to ‘talk’ to again, and repeated botherings from a woman who doesn’t put her photo up – and I think we all know what that means.

I remain keen to find one of the two specific types of girl I mentioned in a recent post, but I am quite open-minded as to how I meet them! Meanwhile, an older woman at work with a very nice body seems very keen on me. I’m deliberating on that, simply because it could get unpleasant working the same place after it ended.

Oh, excellent blogger pokergrub talked about finding a woman worth settling down with the other day. He wrote that if he met the right person he would be prepared (if necessary) ‘to give up poker – wouldn’t you?’ Well, in a word: no. First, I don’t really believe in ‘the right person’. I’m actually quite romantic, but also experienced enough now to know that people meet other people with whom they are besotted and ‘soulmates’ and all the rest of it, ALL the time – and then they split up three, five, seven years later ALL the time.

Secondly, if either of you has to give shit up then you’re not right for one another anyway. Or, if that sounds too ‘blanket’, then a woman wanting me to give shit up certainly isn’t right for ME. I will be having relationships on my own terms from now on. It isn’t just selfish, its also healthy – my relationship with my ex would have been far healthier if I had been more up-front about my desires and needs from the beginning.

On that note, it is a year today since we broke up. I cannot believe a year has passed. It makes me quite sad to think about it. Our break-up was for the best, and I definitely wanted it at the time, but it is natural to feel emotional about almost seven year spent with somebody; somebody with whom you lit sexual and romantic fireworks, and went through journeys, hospital, fun, pain, pubs, counselling sessions…

Enough.

Been looking at my statistics. The last 78 hours of pot limit Omaha have reaped just over $11 an hour. Its good for a 50c big blind game. I was surprised and disappointed to find that my rate in just the six-max games is actually somewhat lower than that. Meanwhile, the $10+1 sit and goes are proving profitable but not as much as the £5+1 games thus far! Only $3.60 profit per tourney after 24 of them.

If I got sacked tomorrow, I would spend a little while seeing how I could do, playing 50+ hours per week. Well, I wouldn’t have much else to do after all! Some people would only go pro if they could make big bucks. I would do it if I could make $550 per week; or rather, if I were very confident that I could play with the genuine expectation of that much per week on average.

If I were to two-table the cash games more (probably one full ring and one six-max), and put in a goodly number of sit and goes as well, I expect I could do it. If I had to. But, after my abortive three months as a pro last year, I know how much truth there is in the common advice that you should only do it when you have several months living expenses saved up.

Forgiving my immune system

I played a 200+ player tournament on Sunday night, got zilch cards and went out 80th calling a raise all-in (me all-in) with A7o. Well, I was short-stacked and had reason to believe the raiser might have something as weak as KQ or JQ.

I haven’t gotten anywhere in multi’s lately, although I play very, very few of them. Yet, reading my old non-poker blog I note that in the space of a couple of days I managed to get to the penultimate table in a 151-runner affair and, better, a 344-runner event. Both times I was somewhat unlucky to get eliminated in hands that would have given me the stack to cruise to the final table.

No matter; I play tournaments only as a diversion, they are like my own version of buying a national lottery ticket. They are somewhat more fun than watching a dreadful TV show in which an audience of idiots actually applaud and cheer as random numbers are spewed from a machine, while a commentator says things like ‘Number 43! It’s been six weeks since we last saw that one, although its actually one of the most popular numbers, having appeared 134 times since the start of the lotto draws.’

I’m feeling somewhat better today, finally starting to kick the virus I think. The weekend was not quite as restful as it should have been; I succumbed to snooker temptation on Saturday night, then got dragged kicking and screaming to a late bar, then went back to G’s house where we watched a DVD, drank some vodka, and went to bed about 2am. Oops.

I didn’t feel too clever on Sunday or Monday, making a week since I came down with this shit. I’ve been ill quite a lot this year, but somebody did point out to me that I’ve been through almost all the top stress factors in the past year and a bit, so my immune system can be forgiven. Since June last year, I have moved city, changed job, split up with my partner of almost seven years, moved house again, left job and city to move back home, and all the while facing serious money/debt problems. I think I hold it together quite well, considering!

Poker-wise, the weekend was fairly crappy. Small win Friday night, annoying losses on Saturday over four hours of quite frustrating play - a few bad beats, a few bad decisions. Sunday night, I made a hundred bucks at an Omaha table, but even that was somewhat frustrating! I got ahead over a hundred quite early, in a pot where my top set got raised all-in by a guy who was drawing dead, but over the next couple of hours I just could not push it on into a really big stack.

Last night was nice. I had some other stuff to do online so I only played for an hour and a quarter, but that reaped $69. $30 at PLO 6-max (I never play a full ring-game any more) and $39 profit from winning a sit and go, having been way shortest stack with six players left.

There was one hand in the cash game that has been bugging me, and which shows why I am not that good a player. Three players in the pot, I am between the two. I turn the nut straight with all low cards on board. Short stack comes out with a micro bet. I raise about half the pot. Third guy (similar stack to mine) calls the raise as does the weak first guy. The river – yuk – pairs the board. Weakie checks. I think, but not clearly enough, and also check and hope for a free showdown. Third guy bets just over two thirds the pot. Weakie folds. This bet screams bluff, and I actually typed ‘So you don’t want a call?’ into the chat. But I folded, not wanting to blow back my winnings by calling into the nuts. He showed a busted straight draw as he took down my pot, so at least I got some information out of him.

I made two horrendous, weakling mistakes here, and I am pissed off with myself. First, I should undoubtedly have bet the river; having raised the turn I could easily have been taken for a set that had filled up. If the other dude had the balls to bluff-raise against my shows of strength he would have deserved the pot, but I would almost certainly have taken it down.

Secondly, I should have trusted my judgement about his large river bet. If you have a full house looking to get paid off, you don’t bet big against two people who have already checked. His bet gave me better than 2-1 odds to call, and I felt there was more like a 40/60 chance he was bluffing – but I let the money make me fold. That’s a terrible, terrible poker mistake. If we were playing for ‘points’ rather than cash then I would have called like a shot.

Oh well, I shan’t dwell on it, and I will allow myself the small mitigating factor that the opponent was new to me. Live and learn.

Final words: very pleased with the Patriots setting a new NFL record for consecutive wins. I’m just about over that Superbowl XX mauling now. And I’m glad my movie recommendation of ‘The Station Agent’ went down well with an esteemed reader.