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...

jbpatzer Topic starter

Joined: 23.11.2009

Posts: 6,972

22.03.2012, 10:35 0

Originally posted by doctorkgb
So you do recommend PT4? At least, as I know, there is nice trial period for it. I hate idea that my HEM1 will probably be neglected by HEM developers, since they will put all of their effort into HEM2.
I know that you were a user of PT before TT started to make a shark of you. Is it easy to use for first time?

Easy peasy. I think I am a convert. HEM is run by morons.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Originally posted by jbpatzer
I'm not going to make a habit of posting session graphs, but to commemorate by first proper bzooooooom session...

v Nice. Congrats.
My first 3 bzoom sessions were exemplary.
Tonight's was execrable.
I found it tedious in the extreme, tbh -- so many hands, so little thought.
Poker for automatons.
Mind you, tedium for automatons is fine when your up 6BI instead of the other side of the zero line.

Zoom/rush certainly brings its own set of mental challenges. It's very, very easy to end up just clicking buttons, and I think I slipped into this in my second session last night. You have to stake alert and focussed all the time, and there's no time to autopilot. I find it pretty hard. I think my years of playing long chess sessions helps here, but doing it for two hours after a day at work and an early evening polishing and mucking out the kids is hard, for both chess and poker. I think cocaine may be the solution, but sadly I only have tea and coffee. Maybe if I reach higher limits.....

Originally posted by StaticMoth

Originally posted by jbpatzer
PT4 is very nice indeed. I was half way through and I noticed that I had notes on some players. I clicked and bugger me, it had made notes for me! Could there be anything better for someone who can rarely be arsed to make notes, especially when playing so fast? I will have to look into this feature, but HEM2 is going to have to do something pretty special to top that!

HEM has NoteCaddy that creates notes as well

Well, I never even realized! That just reinforces my point about HEM. They don't make it easy. With PT4 it just happens! It's like Xmas and your birthday all rolled into one. (Notes? For me? Wow! Thanks! It's just what I wanted! :f_love: )