You know you visit too many gambling sites when...

Last week I'm in the middle of a session on Party when the phone rings. For some reason I still don't know, I decided to pick it up for once. Conversation went something like :

Me : Hello?
Him : (thick accent I can't identify) Hello may I speak with Nicolas please?
Me : That's me.
Him : Hello, my name is Whatever and I work for SomeOBscurBookie from Costa Rica. We are a sports book and are about to offer lots of Euro cup bets as well as new stuff for the NFL and NHL next season. Would you be interested?
Me : . . .

Brag : Bookies in Costa Rica know me...
Beat : ...and are spamming me by phone...
Variance : ...even though I've never made a single sports bet online.

Breaking even...

Well June is almost over and I still have some hope of making it an at least breakeven month. I'm down about 2.5 buy ins and have been for what seems like ages. Made me realize how draining long break even stretches can be. And I don't mean gut-wrenching frustrating downswings where you question everything. Just a slow, draining weariness. Gain a bit, lose it back... lose a bit, gain it back...

I guess in a game that tend to be as result oriented as poker, the status quo is pretty rough. Poker is a game where we expect to either win or lose money. That's probably why breaking even can give you (well me anyway) a sense of futility. I guess it would be like walking for a few hours expecting to get somewhere only to find yourself standing right where you started.

On a good note though, I will be VERY close to my 12K hands goal for June, so my volume of play is good considering it's summer and well... summers are traditionally pretty busy for me. Like this week end, another touch football tourney.

I guess I'll be back here for my June recap.

RIP George Carlin (1937-2008)

Mid-June update

Well other than the fact that I'm getting destroyed in our WSOP pool things are going good so far in June.

The month is in the green so far, even though I've had a pretty roug hevening last night. You know, the kind of evening where nothing hits, your borderline hands get re-raised all the time etc etc etc. The kind of night where you're dealt Kings 5 times and win only once with them... Anyway, not complaining, I've had my shares of insane heaters so it's all good. Anyway I managed to lose only about 60 Big Blinds in the whole evening so that was good.

The last few days, as a change of pace, I've started playing 0.25/0.50 HORSE on FullTilt. Strangely, Hold'Em is my worst game when playing HORSE. I just can't figure out Limit Hold'Em. Still, having lots of fun dabbling in these other games and I think I can hold my own. I roughly broke even last night. I find that patience is even more important at mixed games than when playing NL. I tend to want to play all the games, so if I spend a Razz rotation getting dealt a bunch of bananas for example, I tend to grow impatient.

Anyway, playing a bit of HORSE and doing my session review for 2+2 has eaten a bit in my NLHE time so I'm still behind pace for my goal. Not nervous though, I still think I'll hit it. All I need is a few big nights of play and a free week end.

WSOP prop bet update

Well it's not going well for Team Nic.

So far the only cash I have is a small cash by Cunningham while Seidel and Negreanu both raked in bigger cashes. The finish by Negreanu in the 10K Stud event is particularly rough. Just to make it worse, today is the 2-7 event which is one of Negreanu's good games.

Anyway, the WSOP are a long thing and it's still to early to call this thing off.

Quick start of June post.

Well my playing pace to begin June is already much better than it was in May. Yesterday was the first day of June I could play and I logged a thousand hands. Obviously it's still early in the month, and June is usually a pretty busy month. That said, I'm pretty confident I'll reach my 12K goal.

Alex and I made a prop bet about this year's World Series. We both picked 2 players, and whoever's team cashes more wins. I have Hellmuth and Cunningham and he has Seidel and Negreanu. So far none of our guys cashed, but this makes following the WSOP a bit more interesting.

Over & out.