"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 day wasted on poker..
April 15, 2007 - 8:26 am

One hand.. I'm not really paying attention until I hear someone mutter, "Who has it?" I look at the board.. the Ace, King, Queen, and Ten of diamond are there.. who has the Jack? Who has the royal flush? I've never seen someone get one...

I look at the two players.. one bets. The other thinks. He looks at his cards and says, "This is where inexperience comes into play. I think I have the best hand..."

I think, either he's being honest.. or doing a pretty good setup job.

Time ticks by.. The bet isn't a huge one, but the pot is a good size and he doesn't have many chips, so it's a big hand to him.

He checks his cards again. They still haven't changed. I like to check my cards a lot too.. but not usually twice in one betting.

Finally.. he calls. They flip.. and he, the second guy, does indeed have the Jack.

And.. some congratulations are said, but also confusion. The floor manager comes over.. he gets the choice of a jacket or chip set and the manager even says the chip set is nice. He picks the chip set.

The confusion.. someone asks, "Why didn't you raise?"

He replies, "I didn't think he'd call?"

"What's the difference?" I say. "The worst he'd do is fold and you still win the same amount..."

So yes.. the first time I've ever seen a royal flush, the very best hand in poker.. the guy just calls with it -- didn't think to try and bet more to win more. I find it.. funny. Turns out his talk was honest talk, inexperienced indeed.

Later.. a guy at our table wins his way up to around $1,000. That's a lot of money at a 1/2 table. He makes bets $50 and more with ease -- it's tough for a person with $200 to make the same.

Later still.. this same guy starts to lose it all. He gets caught in blatant bluffs trying to steal pots... He gets caught raising and raising his out of a bluff. His chips start to move about the table. I wonder, why didn't you leave at a grand? You sat with $300.

Later still.. he reaches into his pocket and buys more chips. Again and again he does this. At one point he leaves the table and gets more money. Time and again he makes these huge bets. Sometimes people fold now.. but more often he gets called and loses. He's frustrated and can't believe people are calling him. He buys more chips.. I'm not sure of the total, but I'll wager he bought about $600 in chips.. coupled with his initial $300.. it was easily $900 or a grand he's down when he leaves. If you add in the $700 he "won", then he lost around $1,600.

I look to the table next to me and see a guy with a rack of chips on the table. A rack hold five rows of 20 chips -- $100 in red. His rack is filled, so he has $500. Then I see he's busy loading up another rack and sets it on top. This one has four red rows and one green row. greens are $25 -- so that's $250. He has $1150 in the racks.. some bills on the table and another three or four hundred in chips on the table. That's the most I've never seen.

I look over throughout the day.. His chips grow and grow. I think the same thing about the guy who's busy losing so much at my table -- why don't you leave?

He stays.. he plays.. he wins. He's got so much money he can't help but win now. A third rack joins the first two.. with more green. He's pushing $2,000. He can make bets of $100 and $200 with easy. I've no idea how he's playing, but he could easily push the table around. The guy next to him has $250. How can he compete with the monster?

He stays.. he plays.. he wins. A fourth rack is added. He's near $3,000. It's hard to be sure just how much with the paper on the table and his chips on the table aren't in stacks of 10 or 20. If he bought in for $300, he's up 10 times that.

A group gathers a table toward the middle of the floor. Between the people I can see one of those "line barricades" to keep people back. The announcer has been asking for people interested in play $100/$200. I assume this is that table and it's started. A guy walks by our table who knows our dealer. He says, "Someone just bet $45,000."

A person at my table replies, "Did he just say someone bet a Cadillac?"

The guy talks in Spanish to the dealer. I don't know if he won or lost. People leave the table to go look. I'm tempted too.. but I'm in a hand. I'm playing against a a long-thinker. The guy who takes a minute to make any sort of choice. A minute isn't that long.. but it seems like forever in poker. Most choices aren't that hard. Dramatic effect I guess. By the time my hand is over, the group is leaving... I don't go.

At one point, early, I'm up just shy of where I want to be. I think I'm close enough.. I should go, find lunch. I don't. I start to fall. I peak and valley.. with each peak a little lower, each valley a little deeper.

Over and over the cycle of the cards.. good hands then bad hands.. more bad hands than good. I try to push a time or two. More often than not, it doesn't work. Good starting cards like pairs and Aces with paint just don't happen.

I'm getting a lot of Ace Seven or Queen Ten. If I'm lucky, they are suited.

I'm tired too.. I know this, but I don't have what I want. People come into the game.. and leave -- sometimes with nice racks full of chips, sometimes with nothing. The guy with the royal flush leaves with nothing but the chip set.

The guy who broke $1,000 and lost it all.. leaves with nothing but frustration.

Another guy.. who caught making something like a $200 bet with nothing.. leaves with full racks. He was sitting next to two other guys.. who, if they didn't know each other, sure got a long great. I'm of the opinion they were playing together -- as in them against the rest of the table. They'd avoid, not totally, but usually, going against each other. Perhaps they just realized they were the three best at the table and were dividing up the "fish".

Finally.. I leave.. at exactly zero -- with chips, but neither up nor down. All that time.. with nothing to show for it money-wise.

Lessons? A few... discipline is needed. The point of going isn't to play and play.. while I like playing, the point is to win money. I need to learn to get up when I hit certain amounts.. take a walk, cash money out.. and then come back to a new game if I want to play more. One doesn't need to be the best at the table.. one just need to make good bets at the right time.

One hand.. I make a bet, the guy reraises a huge amount. I think he could be bluffing, but is it worth the risk? No.. I fold.. he shows that he had bottom pair. The guy next to me says, "could you beat that?"

"Yes."

"Doesn't that piss you off?"

"No, his cards didn't matter, he had the bet that won."

The guy gives me a funny look, "You're not angry?"

I shrug.

The guy on the other side of me says, "Yeah, that's poker..."

Why should I be angry? Poker is half cards and half betting. The hands that annoy me are ones where a person is making calls at big bets on miracle draws... Raising or re-raising on a bluff doesn't bother me so much.. but when they run the bluff all the way to the river and then hit the miracle card on the river... that annoys me. They get paid off for doing all the wrong things.

I don't mean chasing a flush, that can be bad enough, but I mean where they need one or two cards and only those cards to win and yet they are calling all-in bets on the turn...

But.. like the guy next to me said, "That's poker..." and really.. that's life. You can do all the right things and end up broke or.. you can end up with everything. You can make bad call after bad call.. and still end up winning just by chance.

On the way home, I think to myself.. with a little discipline, I think I could actually get the money I need from poker. I'll never be the best, but I don't need to be. I just need to focus on my goals and not get distracted. I'm not so good at this. I ask myself, what's the difference between gambling for money and "working" for it? Both require lots of sitting and making choices.. one I just happen to enjoy more. While both strike me as absurd, one is perhaps more absurd and, therefore, all the more appealing.

Perhaps I'm just preparing myself to be fired.. lord knows I'm not really qualified to do what I do.