Poker Perambulation

Well, that isn’t a real title. Instead it is the last two titles from BadBlood’s little piece of the Internet. It is a rant that any of us either has made or has wanted to make.

My weekend certainly could produce the same blog. I gave away a third of my already declining profits. My rolled up 9’s get done in on the river by a one outer. My aces up don’t win a single time while the idiot betting all the way takes it down with his 4’s up or cracks my set on the next hand.

This last weekend was particularly brutal. Great drawing hands never see a card near the hope. You finally get something going – you think – and are brutalized by serendipity flowing all over your opponents. I know it is called 7-card for a reason but some days you just don’t stand a chance.

Over the years, I’ve been a profitable player. The exception is the first few months. But, the dirty little secret is I’ve never been a hugely profitable player. Even if you give credit for playing lower cost structures, it really doesn’t translate. I can say that I get better at whatever is holding my attention over time but I can’t say that directly translates into winning more. Fortunate is an average experience. The good runs are often only slightly above the down ones.

I guess it was easier when my bookkeeping was on the back of an envelope. I pretty much tracked things by the frequency of being able to withdraw funds at roughly a buyin at a time. Then I picked up Poker Tracker Stud – which I’ll really pan shortly – and beside emphasizing the way money flows in both direction, it points out that rake has been the most profitable player at my tables. I’ve over 10K hands played in 3 months of record keeping at PokerStars. The sample is becoming sugnificant and it still doesn’t disclose anything that actually helps. I got as much info reviewing my Neteller history as I get now. And, that looked a lot better over any 3 months than the current massive/pretty accounting using Poker Tracker.

It may be that I’m just a mediocre Stud player. I could track cards better. No total recall but I know what’s live for me. Usually anyway. If there is anything that is obvious it is that I shouldn’t play .50-100. But, I can’t track why.

It has been a rough month. That I do know. I’ve watched a lot of my decent hands go down in flames while others win with a lot less. That does create some negativity but I really don’t think that has impacted what or how I play at least the vast majority of hands.

ADDEMDUM:

I got a mailing from the guy who put my Countrywide loan together originally. Even with the problems with Countrywide that I’ve had, I have to say he did well by me. His latest newsletter discusses the disconnects between ‘the economy’ as we see and it affects us versus views by our candidates – blue or red. That really seems to apply. Obama has played a bit of poker; Mac is anti online; and we all know how girls play. But, they all have the art of the bluff down pat.

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It is interesting how tight our founding father’s played. You can read there views at places like this interesting article. It is from the Constitution Society’s website. You might find it a better read than all those sites with pundits like our poker buddy Iggy and me… (blush)

An interesting quote from the paper cited:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

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Billy Monroe does our “Where are They Now?” He has an interesting one up on one of the proven winners at poker and life. Check out the Bobby Baldwin article on our main page.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 3:25 pm and is filed under Journal, Other poker. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.