Well Black Friday has come and gone and many of hours of reflection later it is time to figure out how to go forward. I spent a lot of time relaxing and getting back to doing other things this weekend that I haven't done in a while and it was nice. I am glad that I will gain my weekends back, but what I am really missing about playing is during the week after work. It was my wind down, my destress. It gave me something to think and focus on during the really lousy boring days, keep me sharp and really helped excercise my mind. So what now? I suppose that is the question being asked by so many. Well I'm not sure. I suppose if I had an answer I would have shared it, but I don't. What I have thought and for now I think it will be the direction that I go in for a while as things sort themselves out, playing the play money games. It appears as though you can sell your play money chips for real money on Tilt and Stars, which is pretty good. The conversion rate is a little lousy (only like $8/1mm) so I need to do a lot of accumulating. I am assuming that the sites will be there when it is all over with and when the dust clears and the world settles back down there will be lots of fish in the sea. Be them rusty fish or new fish, fish nonetheless. I want to be ready with all the bait I can muster. I know that the traditional argument has always been that play money is a waste of time because people play so bafflingly crazy that there is no point. The play is so poor that it is a waste of time. I disagree. I think this is a perfect situation to work on two key things
1. Diversifying knowledge and ability of mixed games with no penalty to the learning process
2. Solidifying the fundamentals of all of the games played.
Okay, we all know that people play like nuts with play money. Nothing to risk. Fine, understood. My counter arguement though is this. One of the basic tenants of micro/small stakes play is was and will always be, people play terribly, if your fundamentals are solid and you play enough volume you will outpace them. Same idea, worse players. Bigger skill edge! So I have been playing some tourneys and mostly just sitting at play money cash tables playing away. Your ability to read and disect players is just as useful here. The play is a lot worse and a lot more apparent. Not nearly as erratic as I thought it would be so that is a good sign. Stable bad is always worse than random bad. The other point and I think that this is an interesting one is I have started to play a lot more mixed games in an attempt to learn and understand the basics. I have been playing a ton of PLO and PLO Hi/Low and have started to dabble in the Stud world. This is an ideal situation best I can tell. I get to work on developing the fundamentals of the game in a zero risk environment. I know that a lot of the other dynamics of the game are going to be missing from this experiment and I am okay with that. I am focusing solidly on understanding the basics of how the games work and where I have equity and when I don't as this is the way you beat the fish. All things considered I think this is a path that will work out okay for me. Now all I need to do is start to accumulate a monkey load of play chips. I started Saturday with 2000 chips on Pokerstars.net (still available in the US) and now I have 30k with a couple hours of play. I am thinking that my NLHE game should easily be profitable enough to skyrocket my totals so I am going to lean on that to build a mountanous backlog of chips and when the dust settles be ready to sell off a shit ton of them for a really nice boost to the roll for a triumphant return to the game.
On a side note, I'd love to hear how other US players are doing. I know this is a big transition for all of us, but for the casual/recreational players there are options and possibilities. The financial side will be gone for a while I fear while this sorts out, but there are still plenty of opportunities to work on our skills and abilities. Don't forget that a lot of the play money fish are the same ones who go to the casino and play live cash there. <))>< <))>< <))>< everywhere 🙂 Gl to all and this is the Gman signing out!