Running for the red line

I dislike blogging, it makes me imagine I’m talking to myself.
But maybe if I do it I’ll start listening.

We had a family discussion around the table this Christmas. My brother plays poker for recreation in a pub league. I used to play it too but I just, one day stopped.

My mother didn’t understand why either of us played. My brother said it was a social thing. I said I played for the money. Mother glared at me, Brother mocked me.

How often do you play?
1 hour a day on average

How much do you win?
up $200 this year, about 8BB/h

So .30c a day? What’s the point
well I just moved up to 5NL, eventually I’ll be making a meaninful amount hopefully

It was a difficult thing from me to reason properly though.
It made me ask myself – why am I playing?

Is it for the money, present and implied?
I don’t play facebook poker – ever, even at work in lunch breaks.
I don’t play the pub league anymore. I just grind it out at µNL online. 1 hour a day.

And that hour a day took some will power to attain.
I’d been playing for 2 years before DC one table 3 hours a week maybe. That was recreational without a doubt. But I wanted to be a winner, and a winner at meaningful stakes.

I want to win at 2NL.
I want to win at 5NL too, not only because I think I can beat 2NL. “The money wont change me!”

But I also hate being at a minority limit. Most people I interact with online play a higher limit – as is expected. I expect when I move to the small stakes pool I’ll be annoyed to be playing 100NL and want move up with the 600NL players.

Maybe it’s not about the money then. Maybe money is just a measure of ability.
Maybe I play for the affirmation, that I have skill, beyond the average player in my peer group?

Something Nasim Nicholas Taleb said in “Fooled by Randomness” – about how we assign value based on our peer group. A lawyer living in a downtown New York apartment earning 250k a year is wealthy by the standards of most Americans. But he will always compare and be compared to the Stock brokers earning million $ bonuses living in the top floors of his block, and naturally feel inferior. Should he move to the suburbs he would instanly receive a boost to his percieved status.

I’ve also begun wondering if I play poker for the same reasons some people play Golf? Not because I enjoy the social aspects, not because I enjoy hitting balls with sticks.
I think I just want to beat the challenge.

Then also I think I’d like to be able to withdraw enough to go on a nice Holiday each year. But you can’t move up if you withdraw your winings…