RIP Whitney Houston. Somewhere a drug dealer is weeping after losing a valued customer. I guess there is always Lindsay Lohan....

I am a master at it. I've quit every single time I've played.

At 2%, you're probably better not paying it off and investing what you would have paid in a money market.

True as it is, teams that played the Patriots are going to be self-selective for having losing records because they lost. In their 16-0 season, the Patriots got a lot of flak for having a weak schedule (which was true), but when you excluded the losses to the Patriots, their opponents were only moderately weak, not absurdly weak.

Quote attributed to Mark Twain: Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it hundreds of times.

That being said, I stayed at my table yesterday for 2 extra laps around the table after I was tired and knew I needed to quit - and I won 2 nice hands that turned a small win on the day into a medium win.

My problem isn't being too tired to play poker. Even when tired I'm generally still paying attention and playing decent poker. My concern is being too tired to drive home.

Positive feedback for negative actions. Poker in a nutshell.

Use the extra money you win to hire a driver.

I quit the instant the thought comes into my mind: 'Maybe you should quit now' even if it's not my BB next hand. After that I'm playing scared money.

I will admit that maybe 2% of the time I tell myself to stfu and keep playing, tho.

Pro tip:

If a player that owes you $500 for 2 years bec he's busto and who's only goal in life is to have the buy-in for the next day goes on a small win streak and hands you $100 don't take it. He will only be back the next day asking for it back.

I'm trying this whole set an alarm and quit when it goes off thing. Being stuck 2+ racks in a good game isn't going to make it easy.

this is y u never lend degens money.

Come on Howard, I wasn't even at the casino yesterday.

It's always about you, isn't it?

Of course. Which is why my total post count in Medium Stakes Feb. LC is 0.

He was always good for it, I used to lend him money regularly, then down he went. Many ppl loaned him money and he'd pay as soon as he made a score. One night, as had happened so often, he took down a large chunk in the Casino Arizona tourney and went around the room paying everybody off. I happened to not be there that night.

Tough Commerce 20 game:

pre: 3 limp, sb calls, i check A3s
flop: KJ3 checks through
turn: K I bet, 4 callers
river: 6 checks through MHIG

Nice, 3 had AT, one T9. They were drawing slim!

Your argument is one of those two also.

While I can imagine the frustration of breaking even (and self-doubt that comes along with it), I've never fully understood the "working for free" mentality. If you have a reasonable expectation of your winrate, shouldn't you just be paying yourself according to that winrate, regardless of results? E.g. if you make an average of $30/hr at the 20 game and break even for 100 hours this month, you still pay yourself $3000. Obviously, this requires a big enough bankroll.

Any fulltimers want to chime in?

If you do that, your winrate is effectively $0/hr and the probability of busto is 100%.

Also, winrates change over time as game conditions change, and you also move up/down between games. So it's basically impossible to do.

I don't pay myself according to expected win; I pay myself according to expected expenses, which are rather lower than my expected win. The Captain is exactly right.

The difference in scale between Internet years and brick-and-mortar years can be ... challenging.

Thanks for pulling this in, TKO; I intended to post that in the NC/LC.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you're breaking even for a long time in a live game, your life expenses aren't going way, by any means. You (the winningest of players) could feasibly breakeven for six months, a year, or even longer in a live setting because you're seeing so few hands, so even if you're technically not working for free, you're still getting some of the brain and soul damage of working for free, and in the back of your mind, there's always thoughts like "I'm spending money but not making any. That sucks." If you were to find playing poker for a rate of $60 an hour and working for the Man for $60 an hour equally fulfilling and equally enjoyable (that is, the actual acts of), I don't see who in their right mind would play poker.

If you pay yourself 100% of your winrate you will go busto* even if you have a large bankroll.

* mathematically speaking: with a 100% probability if you play for infinite hours.

Even if you have infinite dollars?

I have never considered any system even remotely resembling this. Sure it's a good situation to be in (and one that I put horses in) but doing it to yourself would just be so..weird. The way my finances work is the following:

1. Play Poker.
2. Do I have way too much cash in my box? If no, go back to (1). If Yes, proceed to (3).
3. Make investment. Go back to (1).

Occasionally (like twice I think) I have had to sell investments to reload cash reserves. And recently other opportunities have presented themselves (staking people, making short term loans to friends, etc), some of which I have agreed to (about half of each, actually). And large expenses do come up from time to time (apparently I like to move...that's expensive. FullTilt and the DOJ could steal almost 5 figures from me. I'll need a new car at some point). Also the definition of "way too much" has changed over the years. In 2008 when I started it was $20K. Now it's probably more like 50.

But no, I don't "pay myself" and thinking about it that way would drive me nuts. I do however say things like "babe, going on a 10 day trip is too expensive for me", roughing in my expected winnings from the time I'd miss.

This is why Doug (and lots of others) suggests your poker hourly at poker needs to be about double what you can make in the real world to justify poker. I'd tend to agree with him. I still haven't achieved that and probably never will, which could be a large part of the reason I struggle with my existence on a daily basis and have to resort to doing things like taking today completely off and eating 3 meals with my girl. It is you know valentine's day but whatever...