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

22.12.2012, 22:07 0

Since, much to my amazement, the world hasn't ended, here's a braindump of what I may or may not want to be doing next year. It's far too long, so don't feel obliged to read it.

Not Poker
-------------

The only two activities that are anywhere near as important to me as poker (maths is strictly a daytime activity for me now) are:

i) Mrsjb - Not really an 'activity' as such, but I want to spend at least a couple of evenings per week with my lovely wife (She is lovely. I'm not kidding.) otherwise there wasn't really much point in marrying her was there.

ii) Gym/swimming - I have never been this fat and unfit. In the past, I've always had some sports on the go, but for the last three years I have turned into a sedentary, heart-attack-waiting-to-happen kind of a guy. When I made it past the second break last time I went to Dusk Til Dawn, I started to get backache and felt like a small snooze would have done me some good. How sad is that? Given the highly knackered state of my joints and tendons, the gym and/or swimming are my only options. At least in the gym I can listen to podcasts on my phone. Last time I tried to go swimming regularly, I kept getting ill. How does anyone swim regularly without picturing everybody else spitting, snotting and pissing in the pool? It's so unhygenic!

Poker
-------
i) Book - Ofc, getting the book written is my number one priority for the New Year. I have a fairly clear idea of the structure, and we have written the majority of the text. I will start by setting everything up and filling it with polished versions of what we have. In terms of hand examples, I think the sections with me playing like a huge fish two years ago are pretty good, but with the rest of it, I need to go through and classify the themes that we touch on so that I can work out how to organize them. Hopefully I can get this done by the end of January. I'll then know what I still need to write (beyond what I know I already need to add) and also get my co-authors to add anything extra that I think is needed. Any ideas on how to get writing out of TT a bit faster would be gladly accepted.

ii) MTT Night - Oh, how I have missed the thrills and spills of playing for > four hours and mincashing in 2 out of 6 microstakes MTTs. Honestly. I really have. MTT night is back on. :f_love:

iii) NLHE - Hold'em, Hold'em, Hold'em. I have such a love-hate relationship with you. What was the point of putting all that work into getting at least reasonably competent at NLHE if my plan all along was to turn around and say it's my least favourite game? It has kind of grown on me over the last couple of months, and NL100 feels like I'm engaged in a proper intellectual pursuit. I can't decide whether to really give it a go and try to grind out some more serious $$$, or just decide I cba with it. Until we finish the book, it's just something for me to mull over, but I do have to decide whether or not I want to play one or more serious sessions per week.

iv) Other games -

(a) Stud Hi - I've tried most games now, and it would be really nice to learn another new one properly. The one that attracts me the most is Stud Hi. It's the other classic old poker variant that used to be the most popular 100 years ago, along with 5CD. I've really enjoyed finding out about the history of poker (Cowboys Full by James MacManus :f_love: ) and I think I need to learn stud. Then again, I really like FLO8 too...... :facepalm: I'm hopeless.

(b) HU NL 2-7SD - I reckon I could come close to solving this game. What a great mathematical challenge. It's hard for me to resist.

v) Live - Bankroll is an issue for this. I'd be happier if I had more like $5K before commiting some of it to live MTTs and/or Cash, so this is not entirely independent of my decisions on (iii) and (iv) above. However, I love the chips (I never have even the slightest urge to fiddle with them, beyond stacking them neatly. This is partly because even the simplest of twiddly, fiddly chip tricks is completely beyond me, but it also turns out that the poker table is one of the few places where I am occupied enough by watching everything happening that I can actually sit still. Who would have thought?!) and I love the real cards and I love watching all those real people.

(a) MTTs - Clearly rigged, but great fun. It would be nice to satellite in to one of the slower structured DTD events. I'm also happy to donk off £30 every now and again with Borisian and any other Zimmers who can make it to the East Midlands.

(b) Cash - I've never really tried this, so it is, ofc, irresistable to me. I'd want to buy in to a 50p/£1 game with no less than £100, so this would have to come out of my bankroll.

So, now I need to work out, firstly how to shoehorn some of this into seven nights per week for the next three months (e.t.a. for the book is the end of March), secondly what the implications are for my bankroll, and thirdly, plan what I want to be doing once the book is finished.