Sunday, November 13, 2011

Results So Far This Year

It's funny, I find myself more interested in what my sheets say than in the actual amount of money I have available to me. Someone could be robbing me blind after I cash out and honestly I wouldn't notice, because I have no accounting practices in place mapping the amount of money I win and spend to the amount of money I have. MikeL said it well recently "if you play lots of poker and have lots of money, you're a professional. if you play lots of poker and go broke, you're a fish. it's pretty much that simple." Other people have given the advice to just worry about making good decisions and playing well, and the rest of it will sort itself out. Obviously the right answer and approach is somewhere in the middle.

Anyway, my results for the year so far are pretty interesting and extremely frustrating. I just crossed the 1600 hour line for the year, and over 2/3rds of them have been at my place of employment (obviously some of them before I was employed there, but still you get the idea). That's not all that surprising, I suppose. Nor is it surprising that I've played less than 500 hours of "OT" for the entire year, until you think about the fact that I didn't really have the job for two whole months early in the year, so knock out something like 300 of those hours and all of a sudden, boom. All this schlepping around I do looking for good games and the Saturdays I play and all that for the past 6 months have netted me less than 200 hours of ass in seat poker time. Pathetic. The thing is, I know that's the case, and I know the root problem of it is the driving. Today Danielle went to the drag races with her dad and I had a choice to make around 1pm after the Steelers claimed soul possession of first place in the AFC (OK technically that didn't happen until 4:15 when the Ravens finished shitting the bed in Seattle but whatever allow me my moment of glory). Did I really want to drive to Commerce or HG for a half day? Was it really worth it? I eventually decided that no, I'd take the day off instead. I went to the gym, then ended up watching almost an entire extra football game (the aforementioned Raven's fouling), etc etc. The point is that driving to a casino, be it for the day or after my shift, really just isn't the right thing to do unless you're going to play for a long time. There is just so much effort involved, as evidenced by my records that something that feels like I spend a ton of time on has netted me only 200 hours of bonus table time and...here's the kicker....

Negative dollars :(

That's right, I'm underwater for the sum total of hours I've played away from my place of employment. Sure, the real reason is that freaking commerce 40 game just obliterating me every time I walk in the door (I'm stuck over 200 bets on the year in the game why do you think I play 20 when I go there) and not playing enough volume in other games to have any hope of recovery, but still it's just depressing. All of this really got me thinking about home court advantage and how at this point it's very difficult for me to have it anywhere but at my job. I simply can't get to any other casino on a regular enough schedule to have that intimate "feel" of the game and just knowing what everyone has and what they intend to do it with it. I suppose a good question would be "what are you going to do about this, Jesse" and to be frank I don't really have a good answer. I suppose I'll make sure I'm more implicitly aware of the math of any decision I'm making regarding leaving a casino for another one, but beyond that what can I really do? One thing that seems certain is that it makes almost no sense to drive to Commerce to play the 20 (I learned this at one point but seemed to have forgotten it), when I could just stay after my shift and play. The only reason to head to Commerce is the 40, and since I currently am scared shitless of the game I suppose the answer now is just "less Commerce." So here's hoping I manage to actually implement that, I guess.

5 comments:

armor35 said...

Do you know that Google is actively hiring for their LA / Irvine locations? It's not too late to return to software.
FWIW, I have a chat with them this Friday.

jesse8888 said...

Not to sound like an an arrogant asshole, but if I wanted to be working at Google I'm pretty sure I could be. Like, I'd at least get an onsite for sure. Of course I could never work at the Irvine office because it's only like 100 engineers and that's way to small to work with Danielle, so I'd have to work in Santa Monica which is two days hard travel from our house.

DosXX said...

You run good at the Bike and bad at Commerce. It's a bit silly and hypocritical to think about things like not playing the Commerce 40 because you get crushed. Remember that whole post about the guy who PMed you down below? It's one long game and I'm sure you're still ahead when looking at your total results. Go play Commerce 40 it's almost invariably a better game.

Finally, your game selection skills are almost so nitty to be detrimental. This is very much related to the driving issue. Sometimes your overall $$/hour would be higher by sitting in a crappy game than driving somewhere else to play and losing an hour or more by driving/parking/waiting to sit in a better game for 3 hours.

Captain R said...

Agree with Dos. Game conditions also change so quickly, that driving somewhere else (especially in L.A.) really makes no sense at all.

armor35 said...

No, you don't sound like an arrogant asshole at all. Maybe arrogant, but def not an asshole :) Just kidding... Seriously though, I was more implying in my question about the whole idea of giving up a carreer in software industry to professional (live) poker. I am sure you blogged on this subject somewhere in the past, is there a pointer? Do you find it more rewarding / stable / gives you more freedom / independence etc'? What are the goals withing 5-6 years? I heard some notes of disappointment in this last post (maybe mistakenly), so was wondering how frequently you question the carreer direction that you voluntarily picked.