Holiday Carols...

About: Poker. I blogged a couple of days ago about needing to get into another game. That day, the weekly mailers started showing up from the casinos. I hadn't played online in a quite a while, (been having some psychological issues with the "randomness" of cards flopped out by a computer compared to shuffle up and deal done live by a real person!) so I got all my sickies (who are now all well and healthy, by the way) into bed and plopped down on the couch for a few hours of play. No matter how you look at it, playing on line IS different than playing live, face to face. But it's good experience. Look at Chris Moneymaker and Fossilman, who played online before winning the big one. Anyway, I didn't have anything else to do, so I played. When playing online, I usually play in 2 tourneys at a time. Without being able to watch the players for physical "tells", it gets a bit boring. I didn't do too great in the first one, came in 82 out of 2000. The other one, I stayed within the top 4 chip count the entire game, sat there for three and a half hours... and finished 12 out of 2000. When I finished I was so mad at myself, I do it every time I play online. When I cannot see/hear/touch/smell the stack of chips in front of me, and in front of the other players, I bet differently when it comes down to the crunch. I can't seem to get past it, and in the large tournaments online it happens again and again. I can win money in a ring game or at a regular online table, but the big tourneys that count, I suck. Not sure if I want to get any better at playing online even though there's money to be won there. I kinda like them putting the cash right into my hand when I win (live games) rather than having to wait for them to mail me a check when I take some money from an online account after winning.

So the next morning I get up and go through the mailers from the casinos. What a waste of paper and ink. Do those silly coupons really get people in the door? Free room ever week in November. Free slot play. Now, the invite to a WPT satellite game, I can understand, I'll probably play in that, but good grief! Free buffet every week for the next six weeks? And not just from one casino. From any and every one I've ever sat down and played poker at! I kept the ones to match a $50.00 bet on a table game. Those can be useful. Look at it this way. If I walk into a casino to play, I'm either going to A) be playing in a tournament, not getting up to run to eat a free buffet, B) playing in the poker room, which means, PLAYING, not getting up to run to eat a free buffet, or C) playing hold em in the pit against the house, where I'm betting a minimum of $125-500.00 a hand (where those coupons are useful!), and when playing that, the house is going to comp me just about anything I ask for, so why on earth would I need a free cruddy old buffet when I can eat in the nice restaurant on the house? Makes no sense...

At least there's a tourney this weekend. I really need a fix.

Well... I really need to get myself to work so let me leave you with this little tune I've been humming all morning:

Deck the halls with files and clients
fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la
The sec didn't show up to annoy us
fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la.