"Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." -- unknown

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

a profitable day
May 06, 2006 - 9:34 pm

playing for real.. is so much different than playing online. there's less to be distracted by.. more tells to give or try to pickup on. i'll be the first to admit, i suck at picking up tells.

the new poker room there is nice, it's a hella lot bigger than the old one -- some seventy tables.

think about that - if full, 9 people per table.. that's 630 people. that's a lot of money changing hands.

i signed up to play 2/4 limit.. but got tired of waiting. a new table opened up for 1/2 no limit, which is about the same buy-in, so i took a seat. sixteen red chips.. and twenty white chips -- $100, half of what i took out. though i had no desire to play with more...

i played for about three hours. i ate twice.. i window shopped some. i walked about abit. i got in my car and drove home. in total, i was gone for 8 hours.

hrm, something doesn't quite add up time-wise.. 3 hours in travel.. 3 hours in play.. 2 just bumbling about seems too much. perhaps i played longer than i thought. doesn't matter.

sprayed out on my desk.. is three one hundered dollar bills.. five twenties.. three tens.. and four ones -- four hundered and thirty-four dollars. i paid cash for both meals, so once i take out another twenty in gas, that's just over $200 in profit.

my sputtering idea of playing cards for the money i need.. grows strength. i'd move to a smaller, cheaper apartment. i'd look over the bills i have, and cut something or other.. do i really need digital tv?

well, to be honest, there's no much to cut. i don't do much random spending.

the hitch, of course, is that i'm all too aware.. i can (and will) lose money too. granted, i'd have thirty days to win the money i need.. and in my head i've got a scheme worked out..

week 1 is for rent money. week 2 is for bills. week 3 is for retirement money. week 4 is for fun -- and or a week off.. or a vacation week.. something like that.

if i can win $500 a week.. that's 2k a month. i'm not all together sure how taxes would figure into things.. but i just made $200 in one day. $500 seems reasonable... doesn't it?

anyway.. that's, for the moment, foolish talk.

as for how i played, i, obviously, didn't lose, so i did well. part of me says i'd have done much better, but i had to chopped pots -- meaning i tied for the best hand. one was a full house and the other two pair... of course, of the others didn't have the same top hand, who knows how they'd have bet.. so perhaps i'd have won less.

there's nothing quite like looking down and seeing the chips you have left.. something like seventy dollars and pushing all in... heart pounding as you try to look "confident" and hope someone calls.. then, when two people call.. you feel your stomach flip -- did you miss something? is there a hand better than yours?? you hoped for one.. but two.. two is scary.

you flip your cards.. the first person shakes her head and you feel instantly better.. she mucks her hand. you look to the secon collar and he grins, your heart flutters.. and then he shows the same cards.. a chopped pot. the table makes all sorts of noise -- no one expected matched full houses. no one.

relief and disappoint mix as you stack your half of the pot.. ever so glad she was in it.. makeing it worth while. if it had just been two, all you'd have done was get your own chips back.

what's the fee for all this? $5 a half hour.. at least at the limit i was at. not really much at all. i paid something like $30 or $35 to win what i did.

oh, and.. no one met me at foxwoods.