Where I'm At
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
I don't have much to write about poker because I'm not playing poker. Instead, I fill my evenings with a much more cerebral pursuit, Call of Duty: World at War on the Wii, where I get to team up with pimply 12 year olds to shoot other pimply 12 year olds with WWII era weapons. It's really not as pathetic as it sounds. Okay. It is.
Online poker is just a videogame to me, and lately, when I play, I'm doing it half-assed, so I once again have cut down my play. I really should just re-commit to HU games online solely, or find another angle to work. I've lately convinced myself that the single-table SNGs (that's Sit-N-Gos, a poker term for tournaments that start whenever there are enough people registered) are the way to go. It used to be my bread and butter. Unfortunately, it isn't working the way I envisioned. I'm treading water, breaking even, and really not enjoying it at all. I sincerely believe that the player base at FT has significantly gotten better over time, and there just isn't enough dead money to play distracted poker for a significant profit.
I suppose my lack of online play is actually a good thing since live, I'm doing very well. Of course, that isn't saying much compared to last year, but it is still a point of pride. I'm only playing once a week or so, and not at all this week, but with Wall Street regular Wendy involved in an underground card room in the city, it's only a matter of time before I get back into a regular live poker schedule.
Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't remind everyone that the BBT4 is coming up, a tournament arranged by the One-Man-Party AlCantHang. For all not in the know, the BBT4 is a series of online tournaments at FullTilt that award prizes based on a leaderboard. Besides the usual cash prizes of the individual tournaments, FT has added as the leaderboard prizes 2 seats to the WSOP Main Event and 5 seats to preliminary events. This is about the time that I grumble about being unable to actually use the Main Event seat if I were to win it, but since we all know that ain't gonna happen, we can just move along. A big thanks as per usual to the migrating AlCantHang for this great opportunity.
I had an interesting conversation with a buddy of mine, J-Dub, a few nights ago. Dub and I went to school together, everything from 3rd grade through college, but we don't get to see each other or talk as often as one would like, now that he is living deep in LI and I'm a city boy. As far as I know, he's maybe played poker once at an old home game I used to run, but never really took to the game.
While chatting, he brought up this website. I don't remember the exact reference, but he basically brought up something about which I wrote. I was surprised that he still kept up to date on HoP. Admittedly, if you are not a poker person, at least half of the content here is probably boring to you. But even more interestingly, Dubs had one suggestion about the site: a glossary.
It is all too common for us poker bloggers to type things shorthand. Small blind becomes SB. Big blind becomes BB. This is all obvious to the experienced player and probably decipherable to the casual player, but when you start using abbreviations for terms that when in their natural form still make little sense to the casual poker player, it can make for an unreadable blog. UTG, for instance. UTG, for those like Dubs, means Under the Gun, and referred to the first player to act after the BB (big blind). If you just knew that UTG = Under the Gun, that isn't even enough. You then need to explain what UTG (or UTG+1, etc.) means in context.
This, of course, leads to the next question: who is the audience? For most of us, it's inclusive. We are publishing for fellow poker players. But on another level, I'm sure we all want our sites to be accessible to the public at large.
All that said, I think the only solution that makes sense is to simply explain the abbreviated terms when used. A glossary sounds nice and all, but to draft such a document would be a pain in the ass, and there is little reason to believe that a reader who doesn't understand a term will actually find a link to the glossary amidst the crowded sidebar. So, expect to be seeing a lot more explanations of terms in the future, if only so that Dubs can follow along.
Until next time, make mine poker!
posted by Jordan @ 4:36 PM,
