Midlife Crisis? What Midlife Crisis?

jbpatzer · 2010-06-24T10:48:39Z

After reading endless blogs by students and 20-somethings, some of which are very entertaining, I thought it might be nice to write my own, focussing on the what it's like to try to play poker when you have stuff going on in your life that tends to get in the way. Reading blogs by people like TwiceT just makes me feel simultaneously jealous, old and also relieved that I'm not that young any more (this will only make sense to the over 40's). I have a) A wife b) Three kids, ages 3, 8 and 15. Anyone like to guess which one is the most troublesome? c) A full time job d) 44 years of wear and tear, both mental and physical, to cope with. e) An unfortunate tendency to compile lists. About me --------- I'm a maths professor at a British University. I'm not going to say which, as I want to stay anonymous. I'd be horrified if any of my students worked out that this is me. However, it's a very good university, and if you do work out which one it is, you should definitely encourage your teenage children to come here. I specialise in mathematical methods and modelling, mainly continuum mechanics, but I'm trying to learn some game theory in a feeble attempt to improve my poker (more on this later). I used to be a keen and quite good sportsman (cricket and badminton) but dodgy ankles have recently caught up with me, and I'm slowly expanding (think Jabba the Hut!). Poker does not help much in this regard. I've always been interested in games. My grandparents taught me a rummy-like game called Kalooki (just googled this and found there's a web site! Can't believe it!) and we used to play for Licourice Allsorts, so I suppose I have a history of gambling from an early age. Remember, no video games and no internet when I was a kid. I also used to play Bridge (badly) when I was a teenager, mainly because my friend and I could play at the Bridge evening at our local tennis club when we were too young to get into the pub, and get served at the bar (50p a pint!). There was one memorable occasion when we went to the Young Chelsea Bridge Club (so many wanky posh kids there!) to play a duplicate tournament, and my mate wandered off to the bar mid game, and had to be dragged off the fruit machine claiming he was too pissed to carry on. We finished exactly half way and earned Bridge Master Points. Who says it's a game of skill! Anyway, I haven't played Bridge for years, but I've always been a keen chess player and still turn out for my local team (current grade 170 BCF = 2000 ELO for those who know about these things. County standard for those who don't.). Edit: For all you Americans, 'pissed' means drunk. We say 'pissed off' when you say 'pissed'. Me and Poker ------------- I always thought that poker was a game invented in Westerns as an excuse for people to shoot each other, and that it was now mainly played by Texans in silly hats and gangsters. Of course, I was right, but it turned out that normal people can have fun playing it too. I discovered this last August when my brother-in-law showed me that you could play Zynga poker on Facebook. I quickly became hooked, and after about 6 weeks could even reliably remember that a full house beats a flush. I have a shed load of books on chess, so it seemed only natural to get some on poker. Started with the books by Harrington (brilliant!) and Moshman (also brilliant, but what a dreadful writer. His style makes the average scientific paper look like it was written by Nick Hornby.). Then found I could win tons of chips on Zynga using Moshman's SnG tactics. I decided it was time to play for money. I deposited $50 on 888 poker, nearly lost all of it immediately, but fluked my way into 3rd place in a new depositer's freeroll for $50. Managed to build my BR up to $100 playing cash and SnGs, then withdrew my initial $50, and haven't deposited since. This is an essential element, as my wife thought I was going to become addicted to gambling and throw away all our money. I assured her that I am addicted to poker, not gambling. This does however mean that my BR management is very conservative, as I will be in big trouble with her if I ever have to redeposit, and I want to keep my gonads intact for now. Discovered pokerstrategy.com last November, eagerly claimed my $50, and started playing on FT. I've tried lots of different games on there and had some success with super turbos, rush and steps. I also continued playing on 888 and came 2nd for $150 in a $2 MTT. Once my bankroll reached $350, I deposited on Pokerstars and, inspired by chenny's TableNinja video, have been 12 tabling $3.40 SnGs to try to clear my bonus ($110 so far, and as a nice side effect, gold status. I'm going to have a break to read some gold articles and watch some gold videos over the next couple of weeks). After trying lots of different formats, I feel I want to concentrate on SnGs and MTTs...

pokerprons

Joined: 30.09.2009

Posts: 421

09.08.2011, 17:24 0

Originally posted by Wriggers

Originally posted by pokerprons
If sharing HHs and sweating were cheating, then how are we ever supposed to perfect our game and become better? Of course I need a coach to teach me lots of new things I never knew existed, but it would be morally wrong because we would have to share HHs... bullshit! And I also disagree on the point that sweating is ganging up on people. I'd like to see anyone gang up on durrrr and try to take his money. Or say couple of us fish "gang up" on TwiceT - he would be more than happy to take our BR lol. What I'm trying to say is if someone has their game perfected to a very high level there's not much a couple of mediocre players (or even better ones because there is only so much they can know about the game) can do to gain an edge on him, and he probably has pretty much the same chance as if he were playing only the guy clicking the buttons.

Well that's exactly what Cole South and Brian Hastings did to Isildur and they managed to take several million from him in just a few sessions, so yes it is possible and yes, in my opinion, it is morally wrong to do so.

To be fair Isildur has had swings like that before and also after that. But u do have a point there. Although I dont think they could do the same with much more stable players like durrr,Ivey or Antonius (we cant know if someone already tried that on them, but it's highly possible). Anyway, sharing HHs is to me like learning from your previous experience. I dont think everything should be kept private becasue poker world would be a very lonely place and we wouldnt have communities such as this one.

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Wriggers

Joined: 21.07.2009

Posts: 3,250

09.08.2011, 17:45 0

Yeah it's different for different levels in my opinion. For example, in the micros I don't think looking over hand histories in order to study is wrong, as you're unlikely to be coming across them all the time and winning a massive amount of money off them. But if you go to the high stakes and study the hands of regular HU opponents between you whilst sharing HH then I think that is wrong. Especially in Isildur's case where Hastings and South were probably sat next to each other playing, with one planning on getting him tilted whilst the other waited to sit with him when he tilted.

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jbpatzer

Joined: 23.11.2009

Posts: 6,972

09.08.2011, 18:31 0

Chess is a game of complete information and poker is a game of incomplete information, so information is much more valuable in the latter than the former. I'm still not entirely clear about the morals of the various things we've been discussing, but this distinction is probably an important one.