Poker

Well, what can I say?  There is no excuse for not keeping this blog up over the last year.  Yes, I have been busy, but truthfully no busier than any other year.  Maybe it’s just a fact that I’m only going to be “occasional” at making entries on this blog site.  If anyone out there in “Cyberland” happens to stumble upon this blog, then please accept my humble apologies for its sporadic nature.

 

What exactly have I been up to for the last year?

Somewhere in this last year, I took the plunge.  I actually put some money in to my PokerStars account.  It was a big move for someone like me; someone who has always been aware of his “addictive personality”; someone who has deliberately avoided the local casino. 

Only once in the fifteen years since the casino was built have I ever been inside it.  It was a Sunday morning about 4 or 5 years ago.  I finished work early that morning (about 5.30 as opposed to 6.00 or later as per usual) and went for a couple of drinks with some workmates.  As is usual it didn’t take much for the alcohol to affect me and by 8.00am I was in need of food. The casino had a reputation for putting on an awesome breakfast buffet, so off we headed.  I got to the casino and as I stood outside I braced myself to enter.  I told myself that I was there for breakfast “I’m not going to stop at the gaming tables, or the pokies.  I’m going to walk right past all those distractions and go straight to the buffet”.

I walked in to a massive and impressive foyer.  Marble, brass and glass everywhere.  The place sparkled, it was literally bedazzling.  The ceiling was three floors up and there was a sweeping staircase that went to the first mezzanine floor.  At the top of these stairs I discovered a large gaming room with at least twenty card tables.  I could see a bar to my right and beyond that there may have been a restaurant but I was mesmerised by the gaming room.  It’s 8.30 on a Sunday morning so perhaps it’s understandable that only a quarter of the card tables seem to have any action.  I’m curious.  I’m more than curious. 

I wandered through for a closer look.  Blackjack, blackjack, blackjack.  Three blackjack tables with limits ranging from $5 to $100 and between 3 and 5 punters on each.  Roulette, 2 couples discuss the likelihood of red coming a 3rd time.  Carribean Stud Poker, 1 table, 2 players, boring!  My love for poker keeps me at the table long enough to watch a few hands, but I can’t fathom the sense of playing a game that is purely luck.  I’m baffled that this is the only poker variation on offer.  For more than 10 years I have kept myself away from this place for fear that I might get carried away and drive myself into debt , and when I finally do allow myself to enter, I find that they don’t even have anything here that interests me.

My workmates called out to me. “Apparently the breakfast buffet is not operating today.  The restaurant will be open at 10.00am if we want to hang around.”  I might have been tempted but I could see nothing worth doing for an hour and a half.  We left the casino and had breakfast at a pub across the road.

As we wandered back across the road, I mused to myself that I may well stay away from that place for another 10 years – this time out of disdain.  It was a definite disappointment.

 

Things have changed though.  There has been a Poker boom, Texas Hold’em has taken the world by storm.  It has even reached down under and now the local casino not only hosts regular poker tournaments but lately they’ve been advertising Monday and Wednesday nights as “Poker Nights”.  It’s so popular now that there is even a “National Pub Poker League”.

The essence of this story is that putting real money online is a big deal to me.  Admittedly I didn’t put a fortune online (NZ$50 which worked out to about US$30) but it was real cash.  I played the cheap tournaments;  $1 + $0.20 tourneys through to $5 + $0.50 tourneys for up to 45 players.  The $1.00 part of the entry fee goes towards the prize money and the $0.20 is PokerStars’ commission for hosting the tournament.  Typically a 45 player tournament has prize money for the top 7 players;

Total prize pool: $45.00

7 places paid

1st  $14.00

2nd  $10.00

3rd  $7.00

4th  $5.00

5th  $4.00

6th  $3.00

7th  $2.00

For a $5 + $0.50 tourney the prizes range from $69.76 down to $7.87

I had varied success, but I played every night for nearly 3 months.  Occasionally winning, making the money every 3rd or 4th tourney.  A poker acquaintance of mine (Kurt) told me how he was proud of himself for having $50.00 in his online account, considering he had $50.00 in there a year previous. Effectively he had played for a year for free.  Apparently the year previous he started with $50.00 and twice had to put in another $50.00 to still end up with zilch.  So initially I was proud of myself for not losing it all instantly, but the best I could manage was to stay even.  I had to face the reality that my poker skills were not as phenomenal as I would like to have believed.  I put it down to the “online” factor.  When playing online it’s much harder to get a read on the other players, therefore you have to take a more statistical approach.

At this point my whole poker game started to fall apart – I had regular “live” tourneys that I played in, and it’s fair to say that I usually fared ok in these.  The problem was that as I adjusted my game to a safer style that suited the internet, I moved towards “playing the cards” more than my natural style of “playing the players”.  In a live game, the players are easier to read than the cards.

So that’s where my “game” is at, at the moment.  I need to find the balance and I need to be able to switch from one mode to the other as required.

One Response to “Poker”

  1. Itzel Itzel says:

    14.. Great idea :)

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