Use uber? Move closer to casino? Car pool? Take bus? Get a motorcycle or bicycle? Are you going to smoke weed or meth or crack or heroin now?

I would keep paying the insurance and keep driving. Bus costs money too and risk of being robbed is going to be way higher. Unless you can (safely!) keep an account at the casino and not carry any cash I wouldn't personally like taking the bus at weird hours to and from casino.

You can't sell your car because then you have no transport for holidays and no fall back option housing-wise. If you could sell the car and avoid carrying cash on public transport I think that might be worth it in the short term.

However, long-term you have to be working at your game and your finances so you can afford:

- home
- car (insured)
- decent food
- health insurance (I know, I know, I said long-term though!)

Better to bring in more money each month than to relentlessly cut costs IMO. Having said that I am a finance nit as well as a poker nit so I do love not spending any money

fu**. bus costs are higher than I had imagined. We in America really do like to tax the underclass...

I have been pick pocketed before, but not on a bus, and not for a wad of cash. It was my phone. It sucked ass. You don’t know how much we rely on these things. And I don’t believe in cloud storage so I lost a bunch of my old contacts.

I wasn’t planning on having my entire roll with me, but I usually have at least $400 to $800 on my person at all times. I’m certain that thugs in LA have killed for less.

The car is always gonna be my backup for shelter.


Thanks buddy.
It’s easier said than done when it comes to the girl. With the risk of sounding cheesy as fu**, I’m almost certain that she was my soulmate, and yet I consciously pushed her away. Like, I’m not in denial, I have a severely obscure outlook on the world, almost everyone judges me but nobody really gets me, but at the very least, she could empathize with me. I thought I was doing her a favor by cutting off her ties with me…


No.
No.
No.
No.
No.

Only weed bro. And not too much of it either. Too much THC fu**s with my mind.

Maybe bus costs so much because transit is run inefficiently.

Came across an article about Montgomery's bus system on Rosa Parks' anniversary and it was a sad read.

Edited it twice because I was relying on my OMC memory...

Paying for car insurance seems way better than taking the bus. As already mentioned it's going to cost money for a bus pass too. Add in that time is money, if it's going to be an extra 30 min each way then that's an extra hr you could be grinding. Throughout the month that extra hour each day should easily cover the $100 for insurance. I get trying to cut expenses but that just seems like an expense that isn't worth cutting.

First start shopping around for cheap insurance, then decide. QoL wise I'm thinking the car is gonna be the superior option though

This past weekend was a fu**ing disaster. -600, 3 separate buy-ins of $200.

My QQ got large 3-bet by a tight player and I made the correct fold pre against AA and TT, would have flopped top set on 4Q4 9 J board, to triple up early on. If that had happened, I probably would have been up $500 for the day instead of being down $600. just one of those days…


Later, I got KK twice.

in one hand I 2-bet to $20 my KK in late position to get called by QT in BB who proceeds to flop trips, TT9 flop.
checks to me, I c-bet $35, he calls.

Turn is another 9. Board is TT99 two clubs. I don’t like it
He checks to me. I think if he lead, I might have thought about folding. He checks.
I think about checking behind, it doesn’t make any sense for me to do so, I beat the board. I continue, put out $80 into pot of $115. He tanks tanks tanks, then calls the $80 with another $115ish behind. I have villain covered.

River comes an offsuit 5. If I was ahead before the river, I’m still ahead now. He looks like he’s about to stick that $115 in the pot, but then he hesitates just for a split second. He then proceeds to go all in.

This makes me think that he’s nutted, and was wondering if the best value extraction method was to check to me to let me hang myself. I mean, I know we already know the outcome, but can I call with an overpair on a 2paired board with a safe river, or do you think I should have checked back the turn for control?




There was some sort of a silver lining though: walked to the bar of the casino as I needed a drink, I met this one dude just chilling by himself with a beer, just spacing the fu** out. Sat next to him at the bar. Exchanged some conversation, apparently he was down a sh**ton from table games, like 2x my loss or more.

one thing led to another, he said that he would love to smoke some pot, so I offered to smoke him out in my car. did some toking in the parking lot, listened to some Killers (random CD that a passenger left behind back in the day, but some songs are quite good if I may say)
32 y/o, He talked about the one that got away, and of course that struck a cord with me. I won’t get too into it, for his privacy’s sake, just in case he reads this.
But anyways, maybe it’s because I’m a few years from reaching thirty, but it seems like everyone (maybe like, 75% of people) after the age of i dunno, 23 or 25 hits a hard dose of reality and depression. Is that an incorrect estimate? Some people’s depression is like, skin deep, which is sh**y on it’s own, I know. But some people’s sadness and depression goes like, much much further, to a really really dark place. And for some reason, I feel like I understand either’s plight, I mean really understand them.

I’m gonna try to put in some weekday hours to try and make up some of the damage. GL all

Yep I hear you man. 25 now and know exactly what you mean. As someone who's made a wrong turn in life that resulted in 5 years down the toilet it's definitely hard living with that. Especially since I've reached the point where I'm starting to age. Every day that passes I get worse vision, become marginally uglier and have less endurance/energy than the day before. Aging is an extremely cruel curse that I'm trying to learn to accept. I have no idea how guys who are middle-aged/old deal with it. I'm back in school now surrounded by 18 year olds in class and I'd be lying if I said their youth doesn't make me jelly.

I'm just glad I said fvck you to my corporate job when I was 23 instead of slaving the best years of my life away for money I don't need.

Same situation here, 25 y.o. and feeling really not good about my life, working in respectable position 8:00-17:00, but still not happy, living with great girl, in long relationship, but our relationship is just not that great anymore, I fell like I am trapped in situation, being with her also hurts my life and hers also.. So situation without any positive outcome.

I mean life have to be simple, but somehow We manage by ourselfes to make it so "****" difficult.

Your KK vs TT99 board should be a turn check IMO. It is a bit thin as a value bet because V can't reasonably draw at a straight since you could have a boat if you keep betting and the only pairs he can call with are JJ/QQ.

These sessions happen from time to time. That's poker but it doesn't stop it getting you down. Certainly I have found tough times at poker take me back to tough times in my real life. I'm 35 now and in a good place but when I was late 20s early 30s times were hard.

I won't put my life story here but I will PM you later today.

Keep your chin up and keep fighting dude. There'll be a better day soon.

I look forward to it


I see a lot of 16-24 year old kids who spend most of their day working hard at a below entry level jobs. Instead of living up life, living in the moment, they are investing/wasting the best years of their life in hopes to become something great. And that’s all most of them will ever get, simply hope that will turn into nothing more, and a $250 paycheck at the end of each week. By ages 24-30, that wild flame of hope that flickered in their prior years has now thinned out into the partial acceptance of a smoldering pit.

I follow along with every word you say. I’ve always seen that spite that older women have when they see a pretty young girl pass by. Now we understand that men have that spite too, we just hide it better. For men it’s not necessarily about the youthful beauty of our younger counterparts that we find threatening, it’s our inherent desire to hold virility and power. We try and offset this feeling of becoming diminished by substituting our diminishing natural virility with virtual virility, a.k.a money. With money, even in old age with our subpar bones structures and decreasing muscle mass, we can once again move mountains, build houses, provide, protect.

I think middle aged people deal with it with their natural defense mechanisms and rationalizations, whether denial or deflection etc. Or outright midlife crisis, that leads into a state of ‘acceptance.’ There’s a quote floating out there, I honestly don’t know by who, but it goes like this: “The less fu**s you give, the happier you’ll be.” I believe that to be absolutely true, but it just might come at the price of your emotions and humanity.

Not giving a **** doesn't have to cost you your humanity. I like classical stoic philosophy. But the stoics weren't like the modern perception of a a "stoic": Emotionless and detached.

They strove to avoid worrying about things they couldn't control or influence so they could focus their energy on the stuff they could affect. In effect they were more attached and more caring - about what mattered to them while jettisoning everything that was either outside their influence or of no importance to them.

I try to be in the here and now and focus all my attention and energy on what I am doing in the present. If that's sleeping then I try to sleep well, if it's having fun then I really enjoy myself, if it is driving to the casino I try to be the best driver I can (well, not the worst at least), if it is playing poker then I try to be in the zone and play every hand the best I can. It is hard but I get better each day at not allowing myself to drift off into worry about **** that happened in the past or might happen in the future.

I try and save that for specific periods of meditation. Then I'm free to think about stuff like growing older and all that miserable ****! It is good to face those things - they become less scary under scrutiny, I just keep it compartmentalised so I can get on with life the rest of the time.

Yep. Makes me sad that one day I'm simply gonna be too old and ugly to get a woman below 30 that isn't a gold digger.

I wish it was that easy. Now that I think about it, depression is not real. It's just a feeling fueled by negative thoughts and not being in the present. But for lots of people including myself it's very easy to have your brain conjure up a storm of thoughts which annoyingly interferes with things like remembering people's names.

I really wish I could stay in the present more. Would probably make me a way better poker player too.

It isn't easy. It's like tilt control. It takes a lot of practice and you only make small improvements. If you persist though it eventually, and very slowly gets easier.

Even accepting you can't control the thoughts that pop into your head is a good start. For me I've always had a problem with anger. It is like a red mist comes down and I can't think straight or act reasonable till it lifts. Only when I accepted that if it happens - it happens and I can't make it go away did I even realise that I had to focus my efforts on learning to intervene consciously before I got really pissed off.

Now I recognise (sometimes!) that a stressful situation might get to tipping me over the edge and I take a break to cool off before it happens. I don't always manage it but I'm a lot better at it than I used to be.

Depression is different and more long-term than intermittent fits of rage but it can still be addressed in similar ways. You just have to find out what exactly works for you. I don't know what that'll be but I would put money on it being something that takes practice and patience with yourself.

LOL...money helps, but it's the wisdom and maturity that come with age.

Women want shelter, both physically and mentally. When they're younger, they can find both in their parents, hence they don't care about finding them in their mates and can focus on superficial things such as beauty.

Once they discovered it's time to move on, beauty is about as valuable as a brand of jeans.

Money definitely helps but not necessarily tons and tons of money. As long as there is enough money then other stuff is much more important.

Also, Richard, you do know women can earn their own money these days?

You may be too young to understand my points.

Just trying to wind you up grandad

You make valid points. It's just that it isn't only women that focus on the wrong things in their partners when they're young. Maybe the difference is young men don't even realise they need any shelter.

Obviously I don't need anything from anybody because I'm big and tough

You haven't updated in a while. Everything ok?

RP is the real OG.

But his words are very truthful

Sorry again for the long time no update. My mind has been a bit preoccupied these last few weeks, but it’s not only that. I know I can spill out anything I want here, judgement or not, because there is anonymity between us, yet I most definitely felt too ashamed to post these past few weeks.

I started taking an art class at a nearby CC, to try and fulfill my “Learn something besides poker” quota, and to get some social interaction in my mix. There was a good mix of young kids, and older people, I guess doing the same thing I was doing.
At first, the classmates around me were nice; smiles, introductions, and making small talk. A few days into it, everyone’s demeanor seemed to change when they faced me, outcasting me altogether. One guy had a particularly nasty aura against me. It was soul crushing. It made me go into a deep state of self-reflection, which for me isn’t a good thing. What was wrong with me?

At the bare minimum, I know how to relate with people. (at least I thought I did.) that’s the characteristic many people said they liked about me, in real life. I know it might be a sh** example, but when I drove uber last year, I’d pick up some girl that was crying, hear out her relationship problems, and by the end of the 15 minute ride, I’d given her a bit of a confidence boost and made her feel at least a tiny bit better. I could turn a cross, downer kid into a conversational friend by lowering some of his barriers.
In this particular circumstance, I couldn’t exactly put my finger on what went wrong, so I deduced it into two possible reasonings:

1. Someone in the class was targeting me, talking sh** behind my back to make me their common enemy, Hitler style.
and/or
2. Through my isolation and life circumstances, I’ve become very un-relatable to the general population.

Either way, this was supposed to be my way of easing myself back into society; be a part of a class, a community. but all it’s done is worsen my anxieties/social anxieties.

Through my journey, I was supposed to have build up thicker skin. It seems like the exact opposite has happened. I guess that’s what happens when you continue to run away from your biggest problems. They just catch up to you.

My plan for the upcoming week is make an appointment with a class counselor, withdraw from the class and try to get some sort of a refund, and maybe enroll again next semester.
Might want to get in touch with a shrink too, but I probably won’t get around to that.

Through my reflection I’ve learned some key things about myself:
I have a hard time relating with people that haven't’ gone through the same depression as I have.
I’m a cynic.
I still give a fu** about how people see me in real life.
I have a keen eye for seeing who is a toxic or sociopathic person in my life, but there are just too many to run away from all of them. I need to find a better solution, but running away is the easiest solution.

^^sorry to hear it,I guess you just have to be yourself no matter what,it's their lost..

Btw Happy Lunar New Year, hope everything get better in Life and Poker

Sent from my Redmi Note 3 using 2+2 Forums

soooo good to hear from you !!! was defo getting concerned
unfortunate about you're class thing , fek 'em all i say

Sux to hear that dude but I've got to wonder how much of that is just in your head. The guy "had a nasty aura", for real?

Is it possible you're just **** at reading people? It's pretty weird for a group of strangers to turn against someone like that unless they're a complete dick. Are you a complete dick?

Most people with poor etiquette or what not don't think they have that problem.

Man up and ask one of them, "I am sorry, but have I done anything to offend you?"