Two and Through...

[Festus22]

Well, it’s been almost exactly 2 years since I began playing online poker. Wow, typing that makes me realize just how fast time flies. And honestly, I think I’m about at the end of the road. The games are getting tougher IMO especially when compared to what they were when I started and even compared to maybe 6 months ago. Why? Who really knows but I believe the proliferation of PlayerView, GameTime, etc. has had an impact. A poor player is immediately recognized, sought out and pillaged with much greater efficiency than in the past and lasting a much shorter time as a result. Another reason is one of an increasing proportion of good players. Take 10,000 new players. Maybe 1000 are good enough to make money and stay with it and the other 9000 bust out or just quit at some point. Then take the next 10K batch with the same ratio. Now there’s 2000 good players to contend with and so on. I think this phenomenon has continued up to the point of having quite a large percentage of players who are between good and excellent. I’m sure there’s other reasons as well.

That leaves someone like me, who was probably decent but not all that good, facing ever increasingly skilled competition and seeing falling profits as a result. My run has been OK – probably below the mean of most 2+2ers who’ve been here as long as I have but pretty decent. I started with $130 (and about as clueless as they come) and just crossed the $25K mark. I think it unlikely I’ll get to $30K for several reasons. The first is simply I’m not as good as I need to be to remain competitive and I’m not willing to invest the effort to improve anymore. That may sound lazy but I’ve spent A TON of hours reading both books and postings on this site and quite frankly, I think I’m pretty much as good as I’m going to get. It’s kind of like golf. It’s pretty easy to go from shooting 100 to 90, much tougher to go from 90 to 80 and for some, it’s simply not possible to go from 80 to 70. I think that’s me. I don’t have the poker talent necessary – plain and simple.

Another reason is boredom. With several hundred thousand hands under the bridge, holdem just doesn’t hold my interest anymore. I’ve read all the burnout/take time off posts that helps an acute case but I think I’ve crossed into chronic disinterest. I know just the other day I found myself constantly checking the hand counter so I could see how soon I would be done with my self-imposed 200 hand session requirement. Add to this fact that I’m basically a crone (42) compared to most of you and time priorities do change. Burning even 15 hours a week at holdem in addition to a standard job is just too much time away from family and friends.

So add all this up and it looks like semi-retirement for me. I’m finishing up my accumulated Paradise and Stars bonuses and plan on just doing the Party, Empire and EuroBet monthlies for as long as they let me. That should be good for $250ish per month and take maybe 4 or 5 hrs per week at the dollar tables. Of course that’s assuming I can at least breakeven. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

I’ll share a quick story. I tested the “I’ll Only Play Against Better Players So I Don’t Get Sucked Out On As Much” theory by playing some Party $15/30. HA! That was amusing. There were bets and raises coming from all angles that I hadn’t seen before and had no idea what they were meaning. I was in deer-in-the-headlights mode. I just felt totally overmatched. Needless to say, I aborted that effort in short order with a fortunate 4 BB loss after 1500 hands or so.

So anyway, I wish this was one of those “I’m a poker hero” stories I see here a lot and I must say, I find it awesome that many of you have become excellent, even world class players during the time I’ve been here. Guy, ‘kick, Nate, thief, CDC, MaxP, NPA Ed, El Diablo (Ulysses in my day), JoeTall (LarryJoeFish I think?), and many more – way to go guys! And even to a whole slew of SS posters I can’t remember - many of whom have come and gone. Even now, I still scan the Mid/High forum every now and then for an interesting Mike I., Clark, or Mason hand. But unfortunately, this post is one from a fringe player who has reached the end of the line.

I certainly want to thank everyone who has helped me along the way with a special thanks to Mason and David for providing the forums and the literature. I also sincerely wish the best of luck to those of you pursuing poker as a career. It really must be a hard way to make an easy living if you’ve got the talent. Just don’t forget to stop and smell the roses from time to time.

Who knows, maybe someday the interest will rekindle or the fish will swarm again. But my internal EV says negative so in all likelihood,

Goodbye 2+2!!!