In the late nineties, I thought playing Blackjack at the local casino would be fun, and I could make a few dollars a week extra spending cash. I did, but it was not all it was cracked up to be on the money end. I had little invested, just my initial twenty dollars, and at the end of a year I was up just a few dollars over four hundred. Not a bad profit considering the money was essentially free, and all I had to do was drink free soda, and sit for an hour or so at a blackjack table each week.
Once in a while I would go into the poker room, and watch people play cards for money. The game in vogue at that time was Seven Card Stud. I had played stud at the kitchen table just like many other people, so I thought it would be an easy transition. The upside would be more money, and less risk to what money I cared to risk each session of poker. It was a much harder game than I had thought, and stud ate up most of my little four hundred dollar bankroll before I started breaking even, and eventually winning more than I lost.
I learned to be a good stud player, very good in fact. I was showing a small but steady profit at one to five dollar spread limit stud which was the only stud game going. It was a far cry from the kitchen table games, and I had to buy a book or two and think about what I read, and how I played, but I was winning a few dollars over the month so I was happy.
At this time Texas Hold’em was getting popular, and not too many people played it, but those that did, and seemed to know what they were doing would make more from one pot of hold’em than I would in five or six hours of stud. So I did the reasonable thing and taught myself how to play hold’em. Of course my risk payed off, and I was making pocket change from playing hold’em. Never enough to really do anything with, but enough that I played for almost five years on other people’s money.
This year it dawned on me, that what had happened to stud was now happening to hold’em. The money was getting harder to win because the players were getting better. Even the worst player at the local hold’em game today is as good or better than the better players from five or six years ago. I understood then that stud had gone the same way when I made the switch to hold’em. When I switched from stud to hold’em, the usual stud suspects consisted of mostly the same players every night. What this meant for myself was those of us at the table were fighting over the same slice of pie, and most nights breaking even was a good night.
After the last holdem game I played this summer, I looked around the poker room to see how many new faces were playing, and found there weren’t any. I realized then that the days of just going to a poker room for a few hours and winning a bit were gone. From now on as long the economy keeps getting tighter, the remaining poker players will get better, or slow down as I have. Those people who used to go out occasionally and play a few hours of poker on a Friday night are going away quickly, as they can no longer afford poker because they find themselves losing consistently.
This is the current state of my own, and other’s poker playing. I always played poker for fun first, and money second. But just like the stud game of old, the fun times and the easy money are all gone. All that is left for me at the poker table is a lot of hard work for very little money. I work hard enough at my regular job, and I do not care to work hard at the poker table, where is the fun in that? I met some great people playing poker and learned an awful lot about myself, and real life. I think everyone should give poker a try, or try something similar, like golf, tennis for example. Any game that partially plays in your head is a good game to try. There are a lot of life lessons to be learned if one puts forth the effort in these type of endeavors. Myself, I am, looking for another challenge.
I heard blogging takes you to the same places, so I think I may give it a try….
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stud, blackjack, gambling, life choice, blogging, poker, holdem
