Rhymes with Joker

Week Eleven Wrapup

In short, this week wasn't nearly as triumphant as the preceding two weeks. It's actually sort of refreshing, really, to have a down week, in the sense that the pressure is off to keep posting $1000+ weeks. Of course, that said, I now need to post a $1000+ week.

I played in the casino twice this week, for miserable showings both times, for the same reason. It makes me think that casino play is very –EV for me, since the sitzendesfleisch to fold for four hours isn't necessary online: Playing four tables, the good cards will come. Pretty soon, too. It's the difference between playing 30 hands an hour, and playing 300 hands an hour.

On the other hand, playing solely online, while a much better EV for me, is a bit too solitary for my taste. I'm single, and even though Otto the Cat is pretty cool, to have Otto as my only companion most of the time would drive me buggy. So I'll continue to play in the casino, but maybe I'll cut it down to once a week or so. Except when I go back to Vegas next month.

I need to break another newly-formed habit. After two weeks that were more than $1000 to the good, I started thinking of myself as someone with money, and starting spending it a little too profligately. Playing in Detroit was fine on the way to see my sister, but I could have played during the day instead of the evening, and stayed with my sister instead of spending $100 for a hotel room. Ditto for the ballpark: Did I need to spend $40 apiece for the tickets, or would it have been just as fun to spend $10 apiece and sit in the bleachers? (Well, okay, they were pretty nice seats.)

I'm actually pretty good about going into "frugal mode" because of the number of times in my life I've had to do it, living paycheck to paycheck. But I've also become pretty good at convincing myself that this $50 thing or $100 thing or $500 thing was something that I really had to have, and I'll go back to being frugal afterward. (My second monitor falls in this category.) And, after so long of not really having money, there's a bit of thrill, still, at being able to say, "Oh, $275? No problem," and whip out a few Franklins.

Life as a gambler changes how you view money, as I told my mother once (she didn't like to hear it), and though I'm not at that level, I completely understand how, in McManus' book, he can be so blasé about betting the price of a nice luxury car on a bluff. Having $700 in my wallet would have been astounding to me just a few months ago, but now it seems no different than carrying $50 was. And it's different, because if I had only $50 in my wallet now, I'd be feeling pretty short-stacked.

(While on Amazon to get the link for McManus' book, I ran into a situation like what I was talking about a minute ago: Their front page recommended me to buy the second season of "Cheers," and damn me if I didn't click "OK, buy it" just as soon as I did the McManus link.)

In any case, here are this week's less-than-stellar numbers:

The day's best poker news:

• Iggy's Poker Blog

Fellow Michiganders' poker blogs:

• Gambling Blues (BG)
• Gadfly's Buzz
• Dispatches from the Culture Wars
• On Hiatus:          
• Royal Poker
• Ralph Nader's Poker Jam

Other poker blogs:
(People who whined about no link)

• Up for Poker
• The Cards Speak
• Chicago Phil
• Poker Index

Play poker online:

• PartyPoker
• Intertops Poker
• Doyle's Room
• Full Tilt Poker

Or in the casino:

• Kewadin Shores (1)
  in St.Ignace, Mich.
• Little River Casino (2)
  in Manistee, Mich
• Soaring Eagle Casino (3)
  in Mt.Pleasant, Mich.
• Greektown Casino (4)
  in Detroit, Mich.
• Motor City Casino <4>
  in Detroit, Mich.
• Harrah's (5)
  in E.Chicago, Ind.
• Trump Casino (6)
  in Gary, Ind.
• Leelanau Sands Casino (7)
  in Peshawbestown, Mich.
• Point Edward Charity Casino (NP)
  in Sarnia, Ont.
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