Not Live

Hello. I am an online poker player.

{Note to law enforcement: I don't live in Washington state, so you don't need to send me a threatening email. Thanks.}

I wonder why I bother playing live. I'm not especially skilled at it, and I'm not sure I want to invest the energy in fixing the assorted tells, leaks, etc. that ensure mediocrity. So for the forseeable future, I'm going to treat live poker much like playing the lottery -- it's a -EV diversion that should only be done with money I'm okay with losing.

This also means that I shouldn't invest any sort of money into qualifying for the WSOP, not that I have, really. I'll just settle for living vicariously through those of you who've qualified. And I am definitely looking forward to reading some Las Vegas trip reports.

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I had a chance to exercise the losing skills a bit this weekend. Played a very small home game -- 4 players, 3 tournaments, SnG style, winner take all. Finished 2nd, 4th and 2nd. Ugh. Had a sizable chiplead in the first one, but after about the first fifteen minutes I never caught anything of note the rest of the evening. No pair, no draw, I fold. Hard to fight back when you're holding jack high and are outchipped. Anyway, the official brother of Mr. Genius and Mr. TGOD took down all three games. It didn't hurt that he was getting hit by the deck like a submissive in a, uh, well, never mind the simile. Nice job.

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J was the host of the home game, and he had an unopened deck of cards to use. He broke the seal, fished out the two jokers, and counted the cards. He came up one short. M counted the cards. He came up one short. We sorted them out. No nine of diamonds.

This deck was from Harrah's Lake Tahoe, and the seal noted that the deck had previously been used in the casino.

Brick and mortar casinos are rigged too.

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I haven't played otherwise for several days due to a golf tournament. I got drafted to fill in, which I was happy to do since it meant that I spent Thursday afternoon and Friday on the golf course instead of dealing with telephone calls.

The highlight was on Saturday -- I made an eagle 2 on a par 4. Haven't done that in approximately forever. Too bad there wasn't a big skins game!

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With that, lunch is over and it's time to get back to work.