If you're looking at poker as a job and primary source of income it makes sense to consider those extra costs. Just like you would for any other job. I've never heard anyone personally talk about gas costs for commuting, but often enough about the time and distance.

But when it comes down to comparing your actual *play* I think it should be fairly obvious that we only want to look at time spent at the table.

For most players they should be comparing LLSNL to another *hobby*. I spend a few hundred dollars a year on equipment and ~$20/hr to play hockey. Plus gas and time. A rec player that breaks even is doing a good bit better than that.

Why not move closer to where you play? If you're single I don't see any reason to not live within 20 minutes of your work unless it's something like Manhattan vs Jersey cost of living differential and I'd still pick broke in Manhattan.

I think that cost of time is a silly exercise. There are costs of convenience, but you can't work 24 hours anyway and cost of your time is variable

If we realistically did this then we'd always be hopped up on meth and/or sleeping upon the finest mattresses and linen in the world because if we're utilizing hundreds of thousands each year in time equity to sleep then you better sleep a little less and buy world class bedding

There also wouldn't exist so much stuff such as sitcoms and internet forums if our time was always valuable

when i was in detroit i was always afraid all the dealers who knew how to deal off the bottom got jobs in the charity rooms without any supervision. in the casinos they would get caught, in the charity rooms they made bank. so i was afraid to play in the charity rooms. im a little more paranoid than most people however, but if i knew how to cheat when dealing, thats where id try to get hired.

Had a roommate who's brother was a magician so growing up he'd spend time learning card tricks.

He showed me what just an amateur like him was capable of doing right in front of my eyes while I was looking for it and I still couldn't see it happen despite knowing it was happening.

Super scary and from them on swore off playing home games if they had high stakes. It's also the first thing I think about regarding guys like Esfandiari. Not calling him a cheater, but I'd never sit down against a former clown or magician unless at a casino because they are fully capable of doing as they please if they could touch the cards.

TY both for the kind words. It's probably more variance than me though.

I did a few things to keep the sanity while breaking even/losing:

1) Note down every single hand played in a session and review before playing again. It helps cut the **** between bad luck and bad play. If I was on my A game in say the 200th hour of losing, I wouldn't have lost as much.

2) Breaks

3) Study. Paid advice is usually better than free, though I have a solid group of friends for strat shares. Most have played much longer than I have & have experienced worse than me. I mean, this is a slow ass game. 500hrs is maybe 15k hands. There's a lot of uncertainty baked into that morsel. From a personal study perspective, Flopzilla and a calculator have done wonders for me.

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@samo, you left out Hustler

Ty. I'm gonna shot take 2/5 again soon. I'm such a br nit.

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Congrats on your win rate!

I find Hustler to be better even if it has fewer games compares to Bike. What has been your experience? How does Hustler compare to other places?

During my LA trip, the one session (huge sample) I played at Hustler had the worst games of any I saw in LA. They also harassed me about my bag, claiming I would have to check it in (not going to happen) until I actually showed them the cash I had inside. Both of those factors combined with the good games I found elsewhere left me with no reason to return for a second session. Just my experience.

This is dead on. I would just be sitting at home, probably playing video games or some crap. I moved closer to work but further from the room about a year ago. Now that my commute to work is 10 minutes i have trouble keeping up on my podcasts. There are some good poker ones I can queue up on my drive. My drive from work to home to poker to back home is the same. I just used to live dead centered between them. Now its 10 minutes home and 50 to poker.

People seem to forget that it takes time to commute to a "regular" job.

But nobody commute 2 hours to work part-time job that may or may not even actually pay you.

I actually had a job like that, though the commute was more like 90 minutes. B2B telemarketing selling **** tools and power equipment. It was 2011, and only the managers had computers. The rest of us used an outdated physical catalog of 500 laminated 3 ring binder inserts crammed into a binder that could only hold 300. Our leads came from physical printouts of customer's past orders. One dude who worked there for years told an auto shop that a porta power is like a long extension chord. The dudes who made the cold calls worked in another location and were mostly ex cons as our owner used them for tax breaks. All of us however, worked as independent contractors despite having to be at a place of business on a routine schedule. Although we were promised minimum wage should our commission (which was decent, especially if you highballed) not exceed it, many people were often stiffed. One time some sap got a $6 paycheck. I worked there five months. A few years later, I was notified about a successful class action settlement.

Fun fact: supposedly Vin Diesel worked there while trying to make his acting break and some of his lines in "Boiler Room" were taken from his experience in our call center.

It can be good. Honestly though, I don't book many hours there because it's gotta be like a planned thing. I refuse to show up there any time past 3pm because it takes ages to get into a game. Other places, you can kinda just stroll in knowing it shouldn't take more than ~15min average to play.

Solid stuff Qtum

I got a pal who is a former crossroader that does a lot of slight of hand stuff for movies - like when they zoom in on a mechanic showing some of his chops.

I have sat down with him at a table. He will tell you exactly how he is going to cheat you. Cant see it. He will then slow down SIGNIFICANTLY, still cant see it. Eventually he breaks it down into sections where you can begin to see it.

It is beyond mindblowing what a skilled mechanic can do.

If you think you can spot a skilled mechanic you simply have never encountered one, or are unaware that you have.

Yeah, it was a truly terrifying moment for me as well. I'd previously assumed it was mostly movie magic or something that very few people were capable of

How much of the mechanic stuff is thwarted by having a cut card on the bottom of the deck? Or by having a shuffle machine so that the dealer isn't riffling the deck by hand?

Angrist - It would have almost zero impact. He will simply switch in a cooler at some point. Having a cc on the bottom of a hand shuffle does not matter at all. My boy did it to me with one. I cut the deck, I contorted my body, I did not blink, I was told precisely how I was gunna get worked and I could not see it

It seems that card mechanics have gotten past the so-called "mechanic's grip" and the characteristic snapping sound of dealing seconds.

My exact experience, he basically had several different options to tackle the problem. But essentially they are so good at the touch and visual part that they can take a quick peek while gathering, see that the ace is the 17th card from the top and then put it in another exact spot and then cut it so exact etc etc.

He could blindly pick up a pile a cards and tell me how many were there.

Practice a false shuffle, see how impossible that seems to shuffle a deck so precisely that at the end it's back to where it started. That's basic for them.

This is becoming a derail, but ... shuffle machines then?

My experience with home games and charity rooms is that they're so incredibly juicy there's no way we're getting cheated. Is it possible? Yea, but the results aren't indicating it. I'd expect it's more likely you get rolled in the parking lot.

I have no experience with charity rooms

Shuffle machines oddly don't shuffle but put the cards in a specific order. This order can be randomly generated or you can interface with them and choose a configuration. Most of them have Bluetooth/Wifi. I've never heard of this being implemented but it's possible to do.

That requires an inside man standing nearby with a laptop so I doubt it would happen at a charity room that used shuffling machines.

Yeah, this is getting into a derail, folks. Take it to the chat thread or one of the mechanic threads in C&CP, please.

As far as mechanincs affecting winrates, those skills are rare and few who have them are bothering with LLSNL homegames. Fewer yet are risking their dealing jobs as part of a team in charity room, casino, etc. If one dude starts winning Postle-style, I'd change games if I were you, just like I would if security seems off or something else trips my Spidey senses, but I wouldn't let worry about mechanics dealing keep me away from entire styles of games in general.

I wonder what a decent, winning (say 7bb/hr) 1/3 player's win rate would be if Dan Bilzerian was at the table and you were deep. Or in general if a huge donk who raises just about anything is at your table, is deep and you have position on him. $100/hr? $150/hr?

Also what kind of adjustments would you make? And would you still have a stop loss under such conditions or just shake it off and play even if stuck $1500?

LRR - thats a tough question. From what I have seen guys winning 7 bigs per at the lower games are not great at making adjustments and really using their chips as weapons of mass destruction. If they were capable of making appropriate adjustments in order to really exploit opponents they would win more imo. So their w/r would be boosted as would the rest of the tables but it would not be obscene as I doubt they would be willing to do what it takes to funnel all of that whale money in their direction