Life, the universe, and everything

Much as I aspire to be as lazy as certain members of the Cardschat blogger community who will remain nameless, well, it's a slow morning at work.

My time in the past week or two has been largely taken up by an unusually busy period at work and, of course, what are commonly known as 'visits to the pub to watch Euro 2008'.

I haven't played any poker at all. And the beauty of that is that I don't care.

To meander a little, much like any other casual poker player I have harboured dreams of turning pro. I still recall with amusement me thinking about how I could easily just open up a dozen tables of $50NL and happily grind away. I had only very limited liabilities at the time (I still lived at home with the parents until about six months ago), so I would always figure I had nothing to lose in giving it a shot. I often mulled over taking a week's holiday from work and doing a 'trial run', but I always ended up talking myself out of it.

On reflection, how wise I was.

Poker is a soul-destroying game. When one turns pro, (s)he crosses the line between poker being 'fun' and being 'a job'. I, like most casual players, play poker mainly because I enjoy it. I enjoy the learning process, and applying the learning process in actual gameplay. If someone came up to me and absolutely guaranteed that I would make $0 in profit over the rest of my poker playing career (but not make any losses), I would still play every now and then. I believe that's the question you need to ask yourself if you're unsure exactly why you play poker.

The great thing about having a 'normal' job is I have a boss. Sure, it may not seem great when I'm getting yelled at for doing something wrong or making long-winded blog posts when I should be working, but ultimately it's great for me because I have someone to answer to. A professional poker player has nobody to answer to but themselves. While on the surface this sounds wonderful, unless you are very, very commited and are capable of very high levels of self-control, you will end up lagging behind in your poker playing 'duties'. When you play less, the downswings hurt more, you have less working capital available, you tilt, you lose more money because of said tilt, and eventually you end up having to either go back to your old boss with cap in hand and say "oops" or look for another job.

I don't have the level of discipline required for the above to not apply. I don't believe that that level of discipline can be taught, so I'm somewhat stuck. If I don't want to play poker, I don't have to. I like that luxury.

Anyway, the moral of the story is don't be too hasty in 'turning pro'. The ability to distinguish fantasy from reality is a key characteristic of those of sane mind. It's okay to occasionally daydream about winning the WSOP, or even daydream of 12-tabling $50NL for 8 hours a day if you're particularly sad, but don't cross the line without due care and attention.

As I mentioned at the start of this post I've been watching a lot of Euro 2008, and as always when a big football tournament starts I've taken to having the odd wager, gambler that I am. Italy are pretty much single-handedly the reason why I'm only £20 up as opposed to over £100 up (results in the next couple of days going as expected) as including them in my group winners accumulator was unwise in hindsight, and betting on them to beat Romania to nil was probably equally silly. I can't decide whether it's wise to be results-oriented while sports betting or not - the poker player in me wants to say it obviously isn't, but the business absolutely hinges on results.

After much pre-tournament deliberation I backed Spain to win the whole thing, and I'm content with that at the moment. The inevitable Dutch blowup is imminent, Germany look average, Italy and France look worse than average so far, and Portugal are flattering to deceive, and their loss to Switzerland, no matter how understrength their team was, is troubling. Scolari's mind is likely elsewhere at the moment too. Turkey might make a decent outside bet as their morale has to be sky-high at the moment.

I don't think there's a lot of value in Austria v Germany and Poland v Croatia tonight so I'm abstaining, but France to beat an Italy side who appear to be on the brink of civil war at 7-4 looks appetizing in a game where a draw is very unlikely. Holland v Romania is horribly sketchy - you can get 12-5 on a Holland win which normally would be ridiculously long odds, but as the Dutch are already through as group winners and a win for Romania would knock out two potentially dangerous opponents in Italy and France, it doesn't take a genius to see that Holland won't care as much as they usually do. Regardless, I'm tempted to punt on the Dutch, as even their second team should have too much for Romania, and Italy and France have looked so average I doubt the Dutch will be too concerned at the prospect of playing either of them in the semi-finals.