Rhymes with Joker

Week Eighteen Wrapup

Well.

If I had to write this yesterday, this would be a far grimmer recap. As it is, it's not particularly pretty, but I didn't finish the week in the red.

$10.75 for a week's work isn't much to show, especially when I also put up a goose-egg two weeks ago, but I finish the week in better spirits than I started it, because I'm more sure that I belong at these higher-limit tables.

The first two days of the week were simply bad. I took an $800 hit over those two days, which was enough to jeopardize my whole career. After play on Wednesday, and for most of Thursday, was about the blackest I've felt since I was working for a living. (See most of my January posts, particularly my "Lowe's Sucks" post. Working for somebody else ends up driving me into deep pits of depression and despair.)

I took someone's advice the next day, since my bankroll was even in rough shape to four-table $3/$6, as I'd done for months. I sat four $2/$4 tables. That was very interesting. The money was reasonable, unlike 50¢/$1 or $1/$2, but the players weren't—there was a big difference in the skill levels of the $2/$4 players and the $3/$6 players. I did notice some overlap, players I'd played hundreds of hands of $3/$6 against showed up on some of the $2/$4 tables. My comment (again to Hdouble) at the time was that for most of the time I was playing $2/$4, it was as if the other players were playing their cards face-up. I pulled a bit over $200 off the $2/$4 tables in about two hours (eight table-hours), which I would consider a good day at $3/$6. Of course, I returned after dinner for an afternoon shift, and gave it all back, so suddenly I wasn't as keen on $2/$4. Even if they were playing their cards face-up, they could still suck out, and they did.

The next day, still in the shitter, I made the tilty decision to sit down at a $15/$30 long enough to take one nice pot. I stood up twenty minutes later, $152 ahead, ready to grind a nice day at either $3/$6 or $2/$4. Apparently, I changed my mind during dinner, because I came back and hit-and-run the $15/$30 for another $264 in another twenty minutes. A nice $416 day, which helped a lot, but I still didn't feel very good about my week. (Which makes sense, of course, since I was still down $400.)

I was travelling over the weekend, visiting my sister's family in Sandusky, Ohio. That left me with only about an hour and a half to play on Saturday, so I attempted to make it count on a $15/$30 table. It didn't really happen; the $50 I made wasn't even two big bets. But it wasn't a loss. My original plan was to stay in Sandusky, but I had forgotten that it was summer. Sandusky is home to Cedar Point, probably the best amusement park north of Orlando, and so during the summer the rates in the nearby hotels skyrocket. You pay triple digits at a Motel 6, sometimes. So, I drove most of the way to Detroit, and got a room in a random suburb (Woodhaven, as it happened) in preparation to play poker downtown the next morning.

It was a strange day at Greektown. It was a muggy Sunday, where being indoors would be a good thing, but the casino had open seating for most limits most of the day. Okay, yeah, the Pistons were playing in the NBA finals later, but that wasn't until 9:00, and doesn't explain why the place was relatively empty all during the day. (Once the game started, the casino was ghostly quiet—for a casino, anyway.) In any case, the table wasn't great when I sat down, but improved rapidly. Most of my big hands held up, but I didn't have very many of them. And so, even though I was up nearly $200 at one point (playing $5/$10), after two of my big hands, I bled it back for the next billion hours or so to leave down $177. Tiltily, I kind of wanted to stay, to get even, but I was tiring rapidly and still had to drive home. So I did.

I was still feeling pretty black on the way home, and losing money at Greektown certainly didn't help. I ended up diverting my attention by spending my lottery winnings in my head. I was sitting on a ticket to a $71M drawing (and still am, in fact), and so, as I usually do, I was deciding how I'd spend my millions after I won. There are only two possibilities, I figure; either I win, or I don't. So my odds of winning the lottery are 50/50.

Finally, on Monday, I sat more $15/$30, semi-desperate as my week was down about $500. In retrospect, I'd been on tilt in a lot of ways all week, and the decision to sit here again looks tilty as I look back. On the other hand, if I'm a $15/$30 player, that $500 is only about 17 big bets, which is entirely within the realm of variance. On tilt or not, though, it worked, and I made $500 in about four hours, to take me back to even for the week.

Ruminations

Even, that's not so bad, or it wouldn't be if I hadn't had so many other weeks that were merely even. If I weren't a pro, I wouldn't be panicking when I've had seven winning weeks in a row. But since I'm not making a lot of money, the draw I take off of my winnings leaves me to worry about what's left.

At the moment, I think the $15/$30 is the way to go, long-term. But I need to get to the point where, long-term, that makes sense. The road looks pretty smooth off in the distance, where I'm playing $15/$30 full-time and have the bankroll to do it. But between me and that smooth road is a pretty rough road across a narrow bridge. This stretch I'm in now is the riskiest thing I've done since turning pro in the first place. But I think I have to do it to get to that smooth road and to the point where I don't have to worry as much about my (lack of) income.

A commenter to my last post said that my "hit-and-run" strategy was dubious and risky. That comment ticked me off, and I wrote my reply in a ticked-off mood, but it took me a couple of hours to figure out why it ticked me off so much: The commenter was right. It is dubious and risky. But I kind of feel backed into a corner at the moment. $3/$6 isn't working, I can't profitably add more hours, and I can't move up to $5/$10 or $10/$20. That kind of leaves me with two choices: play $15/$30, or get a job. The prospect of getting a job turns me back toward depression and misery that I've been generally free of since February. If I have to take a risk to avoid that, I think I should. I'm rationalizing, maybe, but clearly I need to try something.

And Now for Something Completely the Same

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