Mean Gene

A Post In Which I Discuss The Liquidity of American Labor Markets

In other words, I got a job. Had the interview Wednesday, got the offer Thursday, start work on Tuesday. It's another temp job, but the work seems much more interesting that what I was doing before, a lot less stressful, and I'm making a third again as much money as I did in my last job. Plus my commute will be cut in half, if not more. Which begs the question--why the hell wasn't I looking for a new job even before I got laid off? A good question with a simple answer--inertia. The strongest force in the Universe held me in its grip, and so I just kept showing up day after day, waiting for something to happen.

I'm still looking for that "real" job, this isn't the permanent solution, but it will allow me to pay the bills and keep my cats in clover. Still, getting laid off paid off for me. Got paid severence for the month I was off, got unemployment, got a pretty good tan, lost 10 pounds, and planted a garden. Played a little poker, too.

Played a little poker tonight, too. It's 2:30AM and I just finished 59th out of 280 in a $10 qualifier at Party. Played for almost 2 hours. And I have zilch to show for it. Top 11 places got $215 buy-ins to one of their big tournaments--a question, can you just take the cash, or do you have to actually play in the tournament? But that's a pretty nice overlay, just finish in the top 11 and multiply your money by 20.

And, heaven help me, the play at these things is appalling. About 50 people got knocked out when the blinds were still 10-20. What's the rush, folks? I sat and folded, folded, folded all night. I played 1 hand out of the first 30--I had AK, raised 3x the big blinds, and had 2 callers. Zilch on the flop for me, first guy checked, I checked, third guy goes all-in. Second guy calls. I fold. The guy who bet first turns over AK, the hand I folded because I flopped nothing. The other guy had top two pair, and wins.

I waited another, oh, 30 hands before I got to play again. I play pretty tight in these tournaments early on, but its easy to play tight when J-4 gets you excited because you finally have some paint. Down to about $750 I'm dealt AA, raise, and get two callers. An ace on the flop, I let the other guy go all-in and I call him. I ended up making a full house, dunno what he had and don't care. I'm in business.

But really I'm not, because I'm still way below the average stack. And I can't get a hand to play. No need to bore you with the rest of my night. I went all-in four times, and won the blinds 3 of them. The last I held KQ and the overall chip leader, the last guy holding a hand, called me with Q-10, and flopped his ten. Two hours down the tubes.

I can't help thinking this is still a good investment of my time. I won my buy-in playing Pot-Limit for ten minutes and winning one hand, so it really didn't "cost" me anything. If I win that last hand and double up I have $2500, and even though the blinds are high I'd have enough chips to maybe wait out a few of these jokers and maybe double up again.

I'm starting to wonder about my strategy in this Wild West-type tourneys. Maybe I should try to mix things up early, take a chance on doubling up so I either have enough chips to play aggressively the rest of the way, or get busted out and not waste so much time. I did try a variation of this the other day, and I was briefly the chip leader with about 50 players left. I did get a rash of great hands and tripled up when I rivered the nut flush, but I played a bit more goofy than I usually do. Then I ended up 2 out of the money when I went all-in five times and lost every time, the last time with AK against KQ and the flop coming Q-Q-x.

Oh well. Won't be able to play as much poker now that I'm working. Also can't stay up till 3AM writing whiny posts about losing. Ah well.

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