Too Much Poker, Not Enough Blogging
I've been absolutely terrible about keeping this blog up recently, haven't I? In a way, it's almost ironic that in my first week without a job I've had less time for blogs and blogging than ever. I shouldn't be surprised, however, as most of the time I spent both reading and writing was while I should have been working. Now that I spend that time playing poker, I'll have to explicitly make for blogs.
I've been averaging eight or nine hours of play a day, about 14 if you include multitabing. Not bad, but I can do better, or at least spend more time on multiple tables. I didn't want to tinker with my game too much in the first week, but I expect I'll try to increase the number of tables I play slowly. Particularly late at night, when there are very few distractions aside from the occasional feline intervention, I think I should have the focus to play three or four 1/2 6-max tables at a time without hurting the BB/100 too much.
The other reason I've been staying away from blogs is the vivid reminder every time I look at mine that I'm supposed to be losing weight. On that front, I'm pretty sure Chilly is ahead by now, as I spent the better part of last week celebrating my unemployment. This seemed a little bit premature from my point of view, but everyone I knew seemed to think it called for some kind of food or drink. On the other hand, I have been walking to
Coffee Cartel for a White Chocolate Caramel Iced Mocha (With Soy Milk) almost every morning, which does implement points three and four of the
The Five Bullet Point Master Plan For Winning The Weight Bet (And Subsequently Taking Over The World), so it's not as if I've made no progress at all.
There's tons more to talk about, but I still have tons more to do, and
The Little Willie Invitational starts in less than two hours. There's apparently been some debate about whether they really wanted "Some dude Chilly vouches for" to play, so I hope to avoid embarassing myself and him at least. I figure I can pretend that I'm not a douchebag for a few hours at least, and if I go out early I may even manage to lose gracefully.
I'm thinking about having a St. Louis Blogger/Reader Open sometime in the next month or so. I'm not going to get out to Vegas or the blogger meet-up in December, but it would be kind of cool to meet people who are relatively local at least. If you're interested, let me know at captfreeman-gmail-com. And yes, this includes people I know - if you don't read the blog, you're not invited :-P. I'd like to try to get this together sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but we'll have to see how much interest there is and when everyone is available.
Heavy Things
Here we go, Chilly. I would have gotten it up earlier, but I had to go get me one of them
G-Vegas toe manicures. Then I forgot to take my socks off. It's been one of those days. I've been eating Ho-Ho's constantly for the last few days, and the transition to The Vodka and Toast Diet (note to self: may need a more appealing name) has left my metabolism a little shaky.
That's okay, I just got through my last Thursday at work. Which is cool, because I never could get the hang of Thursdays. Anyway, it's all part of:
The Five Bullet Point Master Plan For Winning The Weight Bet
(And Subsequently Taking Over The World)- Put on pounds prior to the weigh-in with "empty calories", which should be easier to get rid of than full ones.
- My own custom-designed dietary regimen, which I may call The South City Diet by the time I publish the book.
- Exercise, exercise, exercise. (note to self: find heaviest vodka bottle available)
- Learn to drink coffee as a substitute for the two liters of Dr. Pepper usually required to drag me to full consciousness.
- Take over the world. (This stage may need to be more fully developed later.)
So you see, Chilly, you simply don't stand a chance. This
zero-carb + exercise machine = weight loss thing may work on TV, but I have a Master Plan.
And Bullet Points. Don't forget the Bullet Points.
Psst,
BadBlood, I'll give you half my profit on the bet if you can convince Chilly to drink milkshakes instead of protein shakes. Waddaya think?
Nasrudin And The Horse
Is it just me, or is 3.6 looser than 2.4? At least on Party and UB, that seems to be my impression. I don't have nearly enough data yet to draw any conclusions. Can anyone help me out here?
Somebody was asking in comments about my bankroll, level, etc. More generally, the question has been sort of hinted at by more than one: Do you really have any business going pro?
Sadly, the answer is
no. Or at least a qualified
no.
Once upon a time, there was a very wise Sufi mystic named Nasrudin. Nasrudin had an unfortunate habit of acting out his own parables to demonstrate to people just how stupid enlightenment really is, and during some incident involving this (or perhaps too much wine and hashish) he ran afoul of a local potentate, who had him tried and sentenced to death.
"O King!" Nasrudin cried, throwing himself to his knees. "Please, you must spare my life, for I am The Greatest Teacher The World Has Ever Known."
"What is that to me?" replied the haughty ruler.
"If you spare my life, I can teach your favorite horse to fly."
"That would be wonderful," laughed the king. "You have one year."
The next day, a follower managed to visit Nasrudin in the stables where he had been shackled. "Why did you make such an absurd bargain?" the student asked. "Surely, O Wise One, even you cannot teach a horse to fly."
"Well, perhaps not," Nasrudin admitted. "But a year is a long time. I might find a way to escape. Or perhaps the king will die, or be deposed. In a year, he may even learn forgiveness."
Then Nasrudin shrugged and smiled. "And who knows? Maybe the damned horse will learn to fly."
Currently, I'm mostly multi-tabling 2.4 on UB, along with a one-table session of 3.6 on Party every night. Just sort of testing the waters, so to speak. My average daily bankroll last month was about $2600. However, it must be noted that I've taken out 10% off the top of my bankroll on (or about) the first of each month since January. In that time, I've profitted somewhat over $2000. Since my "real jobs" have been paying the bills in that time, the profits have bought me an iPod, a new harddrive, my wife's computer, and a few other toys here and there, not to mention countless pizzas and bottles of wine.
Obviously, I'm not going to be able to pay the bills on $200/month (or even $260, as it is this month). Luckily, I won't need to. My wife is going to take care of that for me. I know, I know, it sounds awful, but she actually volunteered, and our roommates agreed with the plan. It's been obvious for a long time that I've been unhappy in my job, and they all really seem to believe in me (for whatever reason). I have a few other plans for making myself useful and generally improving the quality of life for myself and those around me - I mean, besides the obvious method of playing more poker - and maybe one of them will pay off in some way.
Or maybe I'll end up playing hours and hours of X-Box 360 games. I don't think that sounds much like me, but maybe.
My goal, I suppose, is to become a grinder. I want to get to a level where I can put in a reasonable number of hours per week and win enough to cover whatever luxuries and recreational expenses we need. Unfortunately, we have expensive tastes, but we've agreed to forgo those for the time being so that I can take a shot. As I told my lovely and (possibly too) understanding wife, I don't truly believe that we'll be able to make this work. Of course, I don't believe that we won't, either. Personally, I think belief destroys intelligence. I want to see what will happen, and the best way to learn this sort of thing is empirically. If nothing else, I'll be able to determine if I can ever make this work and put to rest once and for all the hobby/job question.
And who knows? Maybe the damned horse will learn to fly.
