I recently got back from visiting friends in Boston. Like almost every civilized city in North American now, Boston has Uber. Two major cities which don't have Uber? Las Vegas and Vancouver, the place I just moved from, and the place I'm in right now. The reason, naturally, is taxicab companies being dickheads and using their lawyers to protect their government-granted monopolies (Vancouver, Vegas) . So until my trip to Boston, I'd never used Uber, but I was seriously impressed! It does seem that any consumer mentions Uber, it is with the most glowing of terms.
Is there any doubt that these peer-based marketplaces are the future? Uber and Airbnb seem like the biggest and most used ones so far. I also just hired someone off of Odesk.com to do some software work for me. It's not that it was cheaper (though it was), it's that I literally probably wouldn't have been able to find someone with the skills I was looking for without combing through my social network and asking everyone I know.
This is some serious democratization of both the capital and labour markets, which is awesome. Uber reduces the cost of transportation, Airbnb reduces the cost of housing, Odesk reduces the cost of skilled freelance work. And in many ways, they're not just cheaper than the traditional model, they're better. I way prefer apartments to hotels. I want a fridge and a kitchen, not maid service and a lobby bar. Airbnb was freakin' made for me. Uber has your payment information pre-stored, so you don't have to carry around cash and cards. Odesk -- well, I don't even know where I would have found the person I was looking for if it weren't for Odesk.
There's others that I've heard of but never used like Etsy (arts and crafts), Prosper (loans), Taskrabbit (errands) that continue to break down commerce walls in unique ways to unite buyers and sellers. Of course, the traditional companies (taxi companies, hotels, b&m retail, banks) will try to use their corporate goons to prevent this, but it can't be stopped. It's too awesome.*
This is all exciting as hell to me, and makes me wonder what other peer-based marketplace companies I might not be aware of. Is there a complete list of these anywhere? Please tell me of ones you know of in the comments.
* The more I think about this, the more that I think that the Ubers, Airbnbs, etc of the world have the potential to unify people of differing political views. Left-wing folk often complain about the power of major corporations and that they leverage their size and economies of scale to such an extent that it is bad for the consumer or worker. Right-wing folk are theoretically supposed to be in favour of free markets and lack of government intervention, so it'd be pretty damn hypocritical of them to oppose this. In the end, getting an Uber off a random guy who owns a car and knows the city well is basically the transportation equivalent of buying your produce from the farmers market, instead of the supermarket.
Showing posts with label las vegas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label las vegas. Show all posts
Monday, August 18, 2014
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Grappler's Quest/UFC 162/WSOP weekend wrapup
It's been a pretty interesting last 10 days or so for this now relatively boring corporate warrior. In those 10 days I:
Weight cut/Grappler's Quest
The weight cut was terrible. Weigh-ins were July 4, so while everyone in this country was enjoying hot dogs and apple pies, I'd gone 24 hours without water and was doing fun things like taking 10-minute baths in scalding hot water and going outside in the 115-degree sun wearing plastics and a terrycloth bathrobe. I felt gross and weak and sick by the time fireworks rolled around. Much thanks to Robyn because I certainly wouldn't have made it without her.
Nevertheless by Friday I felt totally recovered. I won by points in overtime in the semifinals and then lost in the finals by advantages. The win was right there for me, but I simply wasn't aggressive enough. I took a private lesson with my jiujitsu coach Sim Go on how to pass more aggressively and I feel if we rematched now I would win. But oh well, lesson learned.
The next day I went in determined to be more aggressive, and it worked...for a while. I got out to a quick 5-0 lead and was threatening my second pass of the match with a minute left when I foolishly got caught in an armbar. I know what I did wrong now -- I should have controlled the head as well as the feet while passing, then moved to checking the hip.
In any case, no excuses: I lost because I haven't been dedicated and haven't been spending enough time on the mat. I guess that's an inevitable consequence of being really busy, but I really expected to win these divisions and I'm still very disappointed I didn't.
WSOP Main Event
Of course, nothing soothes the ego pounding of losing at an amateur grappling competition like potentially winning $8 million in the biggest money competition in the world, so the day after that, I jumped into 1B of the main event. I had a good but not great table; good enough that the 69k I finished with the end of the day was mostly the result of other people's mistakes.
Day 2B was a disaster though. I played a 115k pot where my opponent was absolutely crushed. At 250/500 and only 3100 chips in the middle, Villain managed to blast off his >55k stack with 88 on a 543 flop. I had 33 and I wasn't even sure I was ahead when I stacked off, and this guy puts it in with 88. Well, I guess that's why you play the main. Needless to say, I did not win this pot, and busted about an hour later.
The WSOP was obviously tremendously disappointing this year. Ten small cashes might be frustrating, but 0 cashes is worse. Who'd have thought.
UFC 162
Obviously would be remiss if I didn't talk about one of the most talked about fights in the history of the sport. Like everyone else, my mouth was agape when Chris Weidman cracked Anderson Silva with a big left hook and hammered home the coffin nails with some nasty ground-and-pound to make the former champ's eyes roll back in his head.
First of all, I'll just say that if you thought this was a work, you're a moron. The UFC has so much to lose from a worked fight. If you thought Anderson was paid to lose by someone outside the UFC, you're just as dumb because I can't imagine who would pay Anderson enough to harm his sponsorship agreements with juggernauts like Nike and Burger King. Finally there's the obvious: if for some reason Silva intentionally were going to lose, I'm pretty sure tapping to the kneebar/heelhook combo Weidman put him through in the first round would be better than being crushed and concussed by a 210 pound professional fighter. Just sayin'.
So with that bit of nonsense out of the way, the next talking point is generally going to be the question "if Silva didn't dick around, would he have won?" Well the great news is, we're going to find out on December 28! That's going to be a mega-card which approaches a million PPVs, the first time we've talked about those kind of numbers in a fight that didn't involve Brock Lesnar or Georges St-Pierre.
To answer the question - who knows? I think it's important to remember the showboating, taunting etc is part and parcel of Anderson Silva's game. He wants you to come at him aggressively with strikes. Guys who come at him aggressively with strikes usually get plunked, plain and simple. And in taunting Weidman, he actually did get the latter off his takedown game. To say "would Silva have won if he didn't drop his hands" is like asking whether elite poker pros would make more money if they didn't screw around with small suited 2-gappers. Elite poker pros are elite because they know when and how to play those small suited 2-gappers, not in spite of it.
But -- and this is a huge but -- it's important to remember that Silva has done this before, and Weidman was the only one to make him pay. Silva did this hands down, chin up thing with Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Demian Maia and others, and no one made him pay for it. Weidman's better than all of those guys, plus at 38, Anderson is an aging fighter. Both his reflexes and chin simply can't be as good as they were before. I think Anderson should still be favoured in a rematch, but as I tweeted this morning, I think the line (currently -175/+145) will probably get very close to even at fight time. My advise is you should bet Weidman now if you want him, and wait to fight night to bet Silva if you want him.
That's it for now -- things are slightly less insane in the Ultimate Poker world these days, so hopefully I'll update more frequently. Hope you guys had better WSOP than I did! (Not exactly setting the bar high, I know.)
- Cut 11 lbs to compete in Grappler's Quest at the UFC Fan Expo
- Medalled (silver) in the no-gi of said Grappler's Quest
- Was eliminated in the first round of the gi of said Grappler's Quest after blowing a big lead
- Watched UFC 162 with half the Ultimate Gaming company over at my apartment
- Played, and busted, from the main event.
Weight cut/Grappler's Quest
The weight cut was terrible. Weigh-ins were July 4, so while everyone in this country was enjoying hot dogs and apple pies, I'd gone 24 hours without water and was doing fun things like taking 10-minute baths in scalding hot water and going outside in the 115-degree sun wearing plastics and a terrycloth bathrobe. I felt gross and weak and sick by the time fireworks rolled around. Much thanks to Robyn because I certainly wouldn't have made it without her.
Nevertheless by Friday I felt totally recovered. I won by points in overtime in the semifinals and then lost in the finals by advantages. The win was right there for me, but I simply wasn't aggressive enough. I took a private lesson with my jiujitsu coach Sim Go on how to pass more aggressively and I feel if we rematched now I would win. But oh well, lesson learned.
The next day I went in determined to be more aggressive, and it worked...for a while. I got out to a quick 5-0 lead and was threatening my second pass of the match with a minute left when I foolishly got caught in an armbar. I know what I did wrong now -- I should have controlled the head as well as the feet while passing, then moved to checking the hip.
In any case, no excuses: I lost because I haven't been dedicated and haven't been spending enough time on the mat. I guess that's an inevitable consequence of being really busy, but I really expected to win these divisions and I'm still very disappointed I didn't.
WSOP Main Event
Of course, nothing soothes the ego pounding of losing at an amateur grappling competition like potentially winning $8 million in the biggest money competition in the world, so the day after that, I jumped into 1B of the main event. I had a good but not great table; good enough that the 69k I finished with the end of the day was mostly the result of other people's mistakes.
Day 2B was a disaster though. I played a 115k pot where my opponent was absolutely crushed. At 250/500 and only 3100 chips in the middle, Villain managed to blast off his >55k stack with 88 on a 543 flop. I had 33 and I wasn't even sure I was ahead when I stacked off, and this guy puts it in with 88. Well, I guess that's why you play the main. Needless to say, I did not win this pot, and busted about an hour later.
The WSOP was obviously tremendously disappointing this year. Ten small cashes might be frustrating, but 0 cashes is worse. Who'd have thought.
UFC 162
Obviously would be remiss if I didn't talk about one of the most talked about fights in the history of the sport. Like everyone else, my mouth was agape when Chris Weidman cracked Anderson Silva with a big left hook and hammered home the coffin nails with some nasty ground-and-pound to make the former champ's eyes roll back in his head.
First of all, I'll just say that if you thought this was a work, you're a moron. The UFC has so much to lose from a worked fight. If you thought Anderson was paid to lose by someone outside the UFC, you're just as dumb because I can't imagine who would pay Anderson enough to harm his sponsorship agreements with juggernauts like Nike and Burger King. Finally there's the obvious: if for some reason Silva intentionally were going to lose, I'm pretty sure tapping to the kneebar/heelhook combo Weidman put him through in the first round would be better than being crushed and concussed by a 210 pound professional fighter. Just sayin'.
So with that bit of nonsense out of the way, the next talking point is generally going to be the question "if Silva didn't dick around, would he have won?" Well the great news is, we're going to find out on December 28! That's going to be a mega-card which approaches a million PPVs, the first time we've talked about those kind of numbers in a fight that didn't involve Brock Lesnar or Georges St-Pierre.
To answer the question - who knows? I think it's important to remember the showboating, taunting etc is part and parcel of Anderson Silva's game. He wants you to come at him aggressively with strikes. Guys who come at him aggressively with strikes usually get plunked, plain and simple. And in taunting Weidman, he actually did get the latter off his takedown game. To say "would Silva have won if he didn't drop his hands" is like asking whether elite poker pros would make more money if they didn't screw around with small suited 2-gappers. Elite poker pros are elite because they know when and how to play those small suited 2-gappers, not in spite of it.
But -- and this is a huge but -- it's important to remember that Silva has done this before, and Weidman was the only one to make him pay. Silva did this hands down, chin up thing with Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Demian Maia and others, and no one made him pay for it. Weidman's better than all of those guys, plus at 38, Anderson is an aging fighter. Both his reflexes and chin simply can't be as good as they were before. I think Anderson should still be favoured in a rematch, but as I tweeted this morning, I think the line (currently -175/+145) will probably get very close to even at fight time. My advise is you should bet Weidman now if you want him, and wait to fight night to bet Silva if you want him.
That's it for now -- things are slightly less insane in the Ultimate Poker world these days, so hopefully I'll update more frequently. Hope you guys had better WSOP than I did! (Not exactly setting the bar high, I know.)
Thursday, May 23, 2013
It's WSOP time - get after it! (for me)
So the WSOP starts in a week. Holy shit. When did that happen?
I feel like I can't even remember a time where the WSOP would sneak up on me. For the last 10 years, I've had it circled on my calendar and been counting the days. The only reason why today it got on my radar was because I was checking my @ messages on Twitter.
I was tremendously flattered to be picked in a pool by a player I respect as much as Matt, but also a little saddened. First for him, because I expect to be a lousy pick this year. Second for me, because I love the WSOP and for the first time since 2006 I'll be at best a part-time player in it.
Without a doubt, Ultimate Poker surpassed expectations dramatically. We're doing so much better than we projected, and have had a ton of positive media exposure. We've had our problems too, and lots of people have been justifiably critical of our technology and our support. But there can be no doubts that in 3 weeks we've changed the poker landscape and taken a lot of people by surprise.
As for me personally? I've had some good days, and bad days. Today was a good one. It was a big day for me. Today, I actually left the office at 6pm, something I haven't done since launch. I got a ton of stuff done at work, but what was different was that I also left a bunch at work. My problem I have a really hard time letting go of work that needs to be done. That's what a lot of people have encouraged me to do: to recognize that the work will still be there tomorrow and to pace myself so that I don't burn myself out in 3 months.
So I'm taking small steps towards leading a more healthy and balanced lifestyle, but there's still so much work to be done that it's hard to predict when I'll get unburied. As I wrote a month ago, the best way to put me on tilt these days is to simply ask me when I'll get to fight next. I feel like I'm so far away from that. And that a 13-year poker player would move to Las Vegas for eight weeks and not play a single hand of poker in that time has a most Morisettian irony to it.
In previous years, when the WSOP grind wore me down, I brought myself up by remembering that there were so many amateurs, wannabes, dreamers, has-beens, and never-weres who would die for the opportunity to do exactly what I was doing. It made me feel grateful.
I'm going to try my hardest to be a significant part of the WSOP this year, and as Matt himself says:
(I don't know how "easy" it is, seeing as how I've played 140 of them and made five final tables without winning one, but the point is understood.)
But to those with the opportunity to play a full schedule: get after it. I'm jealous, but I'll be pulling for you.
I feel like I can't even remember a time where the WSOP would sneak up on me. For the last 10 years, I've had it circled on my calendar and been counting the days. The only reason why today it got on my radar was because I was checking my @ messages on Twitter.
I was tremendously flattered to be picked in a pool by a player I respect as much as Matt, but also a little saddened. First for him, because I expect to be a lousy pick this year. Second for me, because I love the WSOP and for the first time since 2006 I'll be at best a part-time player in it.
"So, about that job thing"
Wow, I can't believe I haven't even posted about the Ultimate Poker launch. Actually, I guess I can believe it. I simply haven't had the time! But since 2005 I've posted every major life event on either this or my previous blog, so it seems bizarre to look at my own blog and see that big gaping hole.Without a doubt, Ultimate Poker surpassed expectations dramatically. We're doing so much better than we projected, and have had a ton of positive media exposure. We've had our problems too, and lots of people have been justifiably critical of our technology and our support. But there can be no doubts that in 3 weeks we've changed the poker landscape and taken a lot of people by surprise.
As for me personally? I've had some good days, and bad days. Today was a good one. It was a big day for me. Today, I actually left the office at 6pm, something I haven't done since launch. I got a ton of stuff done at work, but what was different was that I also left a bunch at work. My problem I have a really hard time letting go of work that needs to be done. That's what a lot of people have encouraged me to do: to recognize that the work will still be there tomorrow and to pace myself so that I don't burn myself out in 3 months.
So I'm taking small steps towards leading a more healthy and balanced lifestyle, but there's still so much work to be done that it's hard to predict when I'll get unburied. As I wrote a month ago, the best way to put me on tilt these days is to simply ask me when I'll get to fight next. I feel like I'm so far away from that. And that a 13-year poker player would move to Las Vegas for eight weeks and not play a single hand of poker in that time has a most Morisettian irony to it.
In previous years, when the WSOP grind wore me down, I brought myself up by remembering that there were so many amateurs, wannabes, dreamers, has-beens, and never-weres who would die for the opportunity to do exactly what I was doing. It made me feel grateful.
I'm going to try my hardest to be a significant part of the WSOP this year, and as Matt himself says:
(I don't know how "easy" it is, seeing as how I've played 140 of them and made five final tables without winning one, but the point is understood.)
But to those with the opportunity to play a full schedule: get after it. I'm jealous, but I'll be pulling for you.
Friday, April 26, 2013
"...and he was never heard from again."
That was the joke one of my exes, Jacqueline, used to make in a mock-ominous voice referring to individuals who had started playing World of Warcraft. The year was 2006 and she'd encountered an inordinate number of regular bloggers whose last blog posts began with, "so I signed up for World of Warcraft today" and correspondingly got sucked into the game so much that they were never heard from again (at least in the blogosphere).
Just as I have never tried crack or meth, I never touched WoW. But for the last month, I do feel like I've disappeared off the face of the earth. Sure, I've gone many long stretches without blogging, but this last month is the first time in my life I've been so immersed in work that I've had almost no interaction with the outside world. Many times over the last few weeks I've wanted to blog about how the working world has been treating me but the only thing I have time to do once I get home is work out (sometimes), cram a prepackaged dinner down my throat, and fall asleep. The only reason that tonight I have time to blog is that at this moment I'm on call, waiting for a co-worker who is on the road (it's 9:30pm) and could need my assistance online at any time.
Sadly, I haven't really been doing much in the way of MMA training. I make it to jiujitsu once or twice a week. I've hired a boxing trainer to give me private lessons twice a week. I've been trying to keep up general fitness and done a decent job of that. That's about it. Every time someone asks "when's your next fight?" I feel a little bit of life-tilt because there's no way I am in fight shape.
To be brutally honest, if I had known beforehand that this is what my life would be like, I might not have accepted the job. But despite the workload, I'm still glad I did. It's actually been fun in its own way. We have had a tremendously harried week here at Ultimate Poker, but the whole team has come together to support one another and get shit done. It's been nice to be a part of that. My stress level at times has been just through the roof and I have had my share of "omfg this is a disaster" freakouts, but there's definite life-ev in being part of a team.
I also like that I get to dabble in a little of everything in my work. I have had my hands in the technology, marketing, customer support, HR, and finance aspect of things. I definitely don't think I would have survived in a job where I was just doing one thing, and I hope the breadth of my work here at Ultimate Poker continues to increase.
But it is a crazy pace and hopefully things do settle down a bit soon, because I definitely don't think I will last long at the current pace. My hope is to set up and establish systems that largely run without me, so that I can get off the daily grind of burning the candle at both ends and instead work towards making a lasting long-term contribution to the organization. Not to mention getting back to fighting and playing poker.
A lot of people have been asking when we're going to start taking bets here at Ultimate Poker. While I'd love to go into detail, all I can say is that things are definitely getting exciting around here. We are continuing that push towards hand #1 of legal online poker and we really think we have what it takes to be the market winner in Nevada and beyond!
Just as I have never tried crack or meth, I never touched WoW. But for the last month, I do feel like I've disappeared off the face of the earth. Sure, I've gone many long stretches without blogging, but this last month is the first time in my life I've been so immersed in work that I've had almost no interaction with the outside world. Many times over the last few weeks I've wanted to blog about how the working world has been treating me but the only thing I have time to do once I get home is work out (sometimes), cram a prepackaged dinner down my throat, and fall asleep. The only reason that tonight I have time to blog is that at this moment I'm on call, waiting for a co-worker who is on the road (it's 9:30pm) and could need my assistance online at any time.
Sadly, I haven't really been doing much in the way of MMA training. I make it to jiujitsu once or twice a week. I've hired a boxing trainer to give me private lessons twice a week. I've been trying to keep up general fitness and done a decent job of that. That's about it. Every time someone asks "when's your next fight?" I feel a little bit of life-tilt because there's no way I am in fight shape.
To be brutally honest, if I had known beforehand that this is what my life would be like, I might not have accepted the job. But despite the workload, I'm still glad I did. It's actually been fun in its own way. We have had a tremendously harried week here at Ultimate Poker, but the whole team has come together to support one another and get shit done. It's been nice to be a part of that. My stress level at times has been just through the roof and I have had my share of "omfg this is a disaster" freakouts, but there's definite life-ev in being part of a team.
I also like that I get to dabble in a little of everything in my work. I have had my hands in the technology, marketing, customer support, HR, and finance aspect of things. I definitely don't think I would have survived in a job where I was just doing one thing, and I hope the breadth of my work here at Ultimate Poker continues to increase.
But it is a crazy pace and hopefully things do settle down a bit soon, because I definitely don't think I will last long at the current pace. My hope is to set up and establish systems that largely run without me, so that I can get off the daily grind of burning the candle at both ends and instead work towards making a lasting long-term contribution to the organization. Not to mention getting back to fighting and playing poker.
A lot of people have been asking when we're going to start taking bets here at Ultimate Poker. While I'd love to go into detail, all I can say is that things are definitely getting exciting around here. We are continuing that push towards hand #1 of legal online poker and we really think we have what it takes to be the market winner in Nevada and beyond!
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Shady motherf***ers: TC goes used-car shopping
There are a number of occupations that have bad reputations. For example, people love to take shots at lawyers and many people have pretty bad names for them. But most of the lawyers I know are actually solid, honest people who really want to help regular folks navigate difficult legal issues.
The profession that is most maligned is probably that of used car salesman. The three words are nearly synonymous with "slimy" in the heads of most people. When I googled "professions with a bad reputation" for the purpose of this post, this result was the #1 hit, and it showed used car salesman as the profession with the worst reputation.
Well I'll be damned if my most recent used car buying experience doesn't validate the public wisdom!
I needed a car in Vegas. I know what kind of car I like: small, sporty convertibles that are reasonably comfortable but not too expensive. I sent the same form letter to about a dozen used car dealerships in Vegas. I told them all to send me their best offers because I'm not going to be popping into all of the dealerships and this is their best chance to get me in the door.
The tactic worked out quite well; I was able to weed out all the salesmen who wouldn't give me a decent offer by e-mail and wanted me in the door. I ended up getting a competitive offer on a BMW 128i from Desert Audi's internet sales manager which was about $2000 below what they had it listed for. I took it for a test drive, and they pushed me to make a decision that day, but I decided I should mull it over. There were some scratches and dents on the car and I e-mailed them back to say that if they cleaned up the interior and exterior, and removed the $400 "documentation fee" that we had a deal. They set up an appointment for me to come in on Wednesday where I was supposed to simply point out what I wanted fixed on the car.
When I came in on Wednesday morning, they told me the car had been sold last night. Okay, no big deal, it happens. The internet sales manager apologized and said she'd e-mail me some more vehicles. No problem.
She came up with another 128i. It seemed to be the same car as the previous (without the dents) but for about $1000 more. I went back on Sunday, test drove the car, and it looked great. I said if they could make it the same price as last week's car, they had a deal. They came back with an offer for $500 less and I hemmed and hawwed, negotiated some window tint, and took it. The manager and I both signed a piece of paper agreeing on the price. I shook hands with a bunch of people who congratulated me on my new purchase and got my checkbook out.
Then came some waiting, waiting, waiting. The salesman told me it was "to prepare the paperwork" and at the time I actually believed that (after all, I've already agreed to the price -- shouldn't they want me out of there asap before I change my mind?) but I'm convinced that they intentionally make the whole process take longer to increase your commitment.
Finally the finance guy took me into his office. I know this is the part where they try to get me on a bunch of features, extras, extended warranties, and other high-margin crap I don't want. No problem, I figured I'm pretty strong at this kind of thing and can just decline across the board. So when he got into his whole extended warranty speech, I cut him off by saying, "well, this is a certified pre-owned and covered until 100k miles right? So I don't think I need that."
"Oh, is it? Let me double-check." The guy gets on his phone with the manager.
He hangs up and says, "sir, the BMW is not a Certified Pre-Owned."
I'm flabbergasted. I'd been double and triple sure to check this online and here is a screenshot *right now* of their online posting:
You can see at the bottom their Certified Pre-Owned banner in the bottom, which isn't present on some of their other cars. Oh, and when I showed up on the lot, there was a huge banner in the windshield which read "Certified Pre-Owned by BMW".
I asked about this and he said (are you ready for this?) "yes, but it was CPO at the original price. We're giving it to you for this reduced price."
Oh. You dirty motherfuckers. They were trying to pull out the rug and quietly remove the CPO (45000 miles of warranty) just without saying a word. Then they tried to calm me down by selling me their "Platinum Service" which is "much better than the Certified Pre-Owned." I'm sorry for being profane twice in the same paragraph, but you shady, shady motherfuckers. Like, how do you do that? I can understand high-pressure sales tactics, but how do you just change the terms of the deal without telling someone? Why not just take out the steering wheel, the engine, and the seats while you're at it, and charge me for those? "Sorry sir, the engine was included with the original price, but since we're giving it to you for this reduced price, that's going to be extra."
You slimy, underhanded motherfuckers. The world is right about you people after all.
I didn't actually drop any f-bombs in the dealership, but I told the manager that I thought this was shady and unethical. He didn't even try to argue, and I left the dealership. They had a sale in hand, an absolute lay-up, and they lost it by trying to fuck me over just one last time. And the scary part is that it damn near worked. If I weren't such an incredibly meticulous person on this type of thing and checked the CPO online before walking in, they would have gotten me.
What gets me is that the whole time, I actually did get the feeling they weren't trying to fuck me. Now I think the tactic with the whole sold car, the extra waiting, all of it is just a tactic to get me to make multiple trips and wear me down. When I look back on things, I can think of at least five different ways in which someone in the company simply lied to me to get me more committed to buying.
In general, I'm a conflict-avoider. I'm one of those people who feels bad about asking for what I really want. I'll often take a little the worst of it to avoid conflict. But when I get fucked over or someone tries to pull the rug out from under me, my moral outrage goes off the charts. I become the Incredible Fucking Hulk of moral outrage. I will spite people forever and make them mortal enemies. And yeah, maybe I'm being unfair painting all used car salesmen with the same brush, but now because of these guys, I've got the whole industry on notice.
I believe in capitalism. Always have. Always believed that voluntary transactions between individuals are beneficial to both parties; that they're win-win. But used car buying -- that's now adversarial. This is now me against you. When I play poker, I don't cheat, and when I fight, I don't break the rules. But now I have found that used car salesmen are pretty damn likely to short the pot, mark the cards, rub ointment on their gloves, and load their hand wraps. So now I'm on notice. Now it's on.
Ultimately, it seems the most important thing to remember when buying a used car is the same thing to remember when you're in a cage fight:
Protect yourself at all times.
The profession that is most maligned is probably that of used car salesman. The three words are nearly synonymous with "slimy" in the heads of most people. When I googled "professions with a bad reputation" for the purpose of this post, this result was the #1 hit, and it showed used car salesman as the profession with the worst reputation.
The used car salesman still remains the measuring stick for all professions that are frowned upon. Society views these individuals as sleazy shysters who will do whatever it takes to get you into hunk of junk. Many people won’t even go near a used car lot for fear of being ripped off. Also, being swindled by a shady used car salesman is the only instance in life that, when given a lemon, you can’t make lemonade.I never really wanted to believe that any profession is inherently bad. I've gone through my life trying to stay aware of potential cognitive biases. I reasoned that most people probably only deal with a used car salesmen a few times in their life, so if they have a bad experience with one, it's going to be quite impactful. On top of that, people have been preconditioned to believe that used car salesmen are these slimy people, so surely there must be a lot of confirmation bias at play.
Well I'll be damned if my most recent used car buying experience doesn't validate the public wisdom!
I needed a car in Vegas. I know what kind of car I like: small, sporty convertibles that are reasonably comfortable but not too expensive. I sent the same form letter to about a dozen used car dealerships in Vegas. I told them all to send me their best offers because I'm not going to be popping into all of the dealerships and this is their best chance to get me in the door.
The tactic worked out quite well; I was able to weed out all the salesmen who wouldn't give me a decent offer by e-mail and wanted me in the door. I ended up getting a competitive offer on a BMW 128i from Desert Audi's internet sales manager which was about $2000 below what they had it listed for. I took it for a test drive, and they pushed me to make a decision that day, but I decided I should mull it over. There were some scratches and dents on the car and I e-mailed them back to say that if they cleaned up the interior and exterior, and removed the $400 "documentation fee" that we had a deal. They set up an appointment for me to come in on Wednesday where I was supposed to simply point out what I wanted fixed on the car.
When I came in on Wednesday morning, they told me the car had been sold last night. Okay, no big deal, it happens. The internet sales manager apologized and said she'd e-mail me some more vehicles. No problem.
She came up with another 128i. It seemed to be the same car as the previous (without the dents) but for about $1000 more. I went back on Sunday, test drove the car, and it looked great. I said if they could make it the same price as last week's car, they had a deal. They came back with an offer for $500 less and I hemmed and hawwed, negotiated some window tint, and took it. The manager and I both signed a piece of paper agreeing on the price. I shook hands with a bunch of people who congratulated me on my new purchase and got my checkbook out.
Then came some waiting, waiting, waiting. The salesman told me it was "to prepare the paperwork" and at the time I actually believed that (after all, I've already agreed to the price -- shouldn't they want me out of there asap before I change my mind?) but I'm convinced that they intentionally make the whole process take longer to increase your commitment.
Finally the finance guy took me into his office. I know this is the part where they try to get me on a bunch of features, extras, extended warranties, and other high-margin crap I don't want. No problem, I figured I'm pretty strong at this kind of thing and can just decline across the board. So when he got into his whole extended warranty speech, I cut him off by saying, "well, this is a certified pre-owned and covered until 100k miles right? So I don't think I need that."
"Oh, is it? Let me double-check." The guy gets on his phone with the manager.
He hangs up and says, "sir, the BMW is not a Certified Pre-Owned."
I'm flabbergasted. I'd been double and triple sure to check this online and here is a screenshot *right now* of their online posting:
You can see at the bottom their Certified Pre-Owned banner in the bottom, which isn't present on some of their other cars. Oh, and when I showed up on the lot, there was a huge banner in the windshield which read "Certified Pre-Owned by BMW".
I asked about this and he said (are you ready for this?) "yes, but it was CPO at the original price. We're giving it to you for this reduced price."
Oh. You dirty motherfuckers. They were trying to pull out the rug and quietly remove the CPO (45000 miles of warranty) just without saying a word. Then they tried to calm me down by selling me their "Platinum Service" which is "much better than the Certified Pre-Owned." I'm sorry for being profane twice in the same paragraph, but you shady, shady motherfuckers. Like, how do you do that? I can understand high-pressure sales tactics, but how do you just change the terms of the deal without telling someone? Why not just take out the steering wheel, the engine, and the seats while you're at it, and charge me for those? "Sorry sir, the engine was included with the original price, but since we're giving it to you for this reduced price, that's going to be extra."
You slimy, underhanded motherfuckers. The world is right about you people after all.
I didn't actually drop any f-bombs in the dealership, but I told the manager that I thought this was shady and unethical. He didn't even try to argue, and I left the dealership. They had a sale in hand, an absolute lay-up, and they lost it by trying to fuck me over just one last time. And the scary part is that it damn near worked. If I weren't such an incredibly meticulous person on this type of thing and checked the CPO online before walking in, they would have gotten me.
What gets me is that the whole time, I actually did get the feeling they weren't trying to fuck me. Now I think the tactic with the whole sold car, the extra waiting, all of it is just a tactic to get me to make multiple trips and wear me down. When I look back on things, I can think of at least five different ways in which someone in the company simply lied to me to get me more committed to buying.
In general, I'm a conflict-avoider. I'm one of those people who feels bad about asking for what I really want. I'll often take a little the worst of it to avoid conflict. But when I get fucked over or someone tries to pull the rug out from under me, my moral outrage goes off the charts. I become the Incredible Fucking Hulk of moral outrage. I will spite people forever and make them mortal enemies. And yeah, maybe I'm being unfair painting all used car salesmen with the same brush, but now because of these guys, I've got the whole industry on notice.
I believe in capitalism. Always have. Always believed that voluntary transactions between individuals are beneficial to both parties; that they're win-win. But used car buying -- that's now adversarial. This is now me against you. When I play poker, I don't cheat, and when I fight, I don't break the rules. But now I have found that used car salesmen are pretty damn likely to short the pot, mark the cards, rub ointment on their gloves, and load their hand wraps. So now I'm on notice. Now it's on.
Ultimately, it seems the most important thing to remember when buying a used car is the same thing to remember when you're in a cage fight:
Protect yourself at all times.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
I'm joining Ultimate Poker!
I've teased a couple times on this blog over the last year that I had something in the pipeline brewing. It's with great pleasure that today I get to announce it.
I have joined the Ultimate Poker team.
For those of you who don't know, Ultimate Poker is the newest venture out of Ultimate Gaming. Ultimate Gaming was one of the first companies to receive an online poker license in Nevada, way back in the fall of 2012. We are also majority-owned by Station Casinos and are partnered up with the UFC (who are of course, also owned by the Fertitta brothers).
It should seem fairly obvious that this is a pretty good place for an MMA-obsessed poker pro to land, from both my side and theirs.
I was first contacted with the idea of joining Ultimate Poker almost one year ago to the day. Since then it's been in my head the whole time. It was a struggle to decide though. I thought, "hey, my life as a poker pro/MMA nerd is great. Why mess with something that isn't broken?"
For the last two years (when I started to seriously get into MMA), my life has been a repeat of: wake up, work out, eat, nap, train MMA, eat again, and sleep - and I simply fill the gaps with a small amount of online grinding. Once in a while when there's an exciting major tournament somewhere cool, I go to that -- and try to find a fight gym worth training at as well.
Despite how content I was with everything, I still couldn't shake the idea. I talked to a few close and trusted friends and they thought it was a great opportunity for me. I thought back to my PokerStars days and how much fun it was to be part of a poker startup, to watch a business grow from infancy into something massive and awesome. At the same time, playing poker started to become less exciting to me. Ten WSOP cashes is great and all, but when you cash ten times, that's a ton of hours at the poker table (and no real big payoff, in my case). In the fall, I played only five live tournaments and had a 1st, 2nd and 4th. I ran super-hot in that period and yet I still wasn't sure if I wanted to play poker for a living. I thought, "if I'm not super-excited about poker when I'm running good, I'm a little worried what's going to happen when I start running bad..."
So I kept coming back to the Ultimate Poker thing. I had been mostly talking with their Chief Marketing Officer, Joe Versaci. Joe was North American Marketing Director at PokerStars for many years. Our respective Stars careers barely overlapped, but we know many of the same people, and the people I talked to all said great things about him. Joe not only wanted me because I had past experience starting up the PokerStars support team, but he also loved the idea that I'm a poker player who lives and breathes MMA and the UFC. So I said to Joe that I'd love to work for the company -- as long as you can promise that I'll still be able to train MMA the way I'm used to. When it came to salary, I didn't ask for a dollar more than they were offering; I only wanted the freedom. He agreed, and in fact told me that not only supported, but actually wanted me to fight and play major poker tournaments as it would be great for our brand. And that's why I'm sitting here with a real j-o-b in an actual o-f-f-i-c-e for the first time in nine years.
On one hand, it's a huge change for me. I know from experience that being part of a startup is crazy work. Stuff always goes wrong and there are always challenges and hurdles you didn't anticipate. But more than anything I'm excited. Excited to be hopefully a good team player and leader. Our Vegas office is a couple dozen employees and they're an awesome group who has welcomed me. We have a lot of fun in the office throwing around poker ideas as we stand on the precipice of the first legal real-money hand of online poker in the United States. There's so much talent here, all channeled towards the same goal, that I can't imagine anything other than success and good times.
As for what you'll be seeing from me: more of the same! Any time anyone ever sees me at a poker tournament, they want to know when I'll be fighting again. Well, I've now relocated (yes, legally) to the biggest fight town in the world. So, let's hope the answer to that question is, "soon!" And I'll still be at the WSOP; look for me rocking the Ultimate Poker gear at the tables. I might not have month-long training vacations in Thailand or be able to fly down to Australia or Europe as much, but I'll still be in the poker scene.
One of the nice things about having been successful and reasonably smart with my money over the years is that I only have to do this as long as it's fun, and if it stops being fun, I'll go do something else. That goes for poker, MMA, or working in a poker startup. But I'm loving the people and the environment so far, and I'm excited to be a part of something big. They say that when one door closes, another opens. But I've walked through a new door here, and I still get to keep the other ones open. Good deal for me!
But that's enough self-indulgent writing for now. If you'll excuse me, there's work to do to get Hand #1 dealt!
I have joined the Ultimate Poker team.
For those of you who don't know, Ultimate Poker is the newest venture out of Ultimate Gaming. Ultimate Gaming was one of the first companies to receive an online poker license in Nevada, way back in the fall of 2012. We are also majority-owned by Station Casinos and are partnered up with the UFC (who are of course, also owned by the Fertitta brothers).
It should seem fairly obvious that this is a pretty good place for an MMA-obsessed poker pro to land, from both my side and theirs.
I was first contacted with the idea of joining Ultimate Poker almost one year ago to the day. Since then it's been in my head the whole time. It was a struggle to decide though. I thought, "hey, my life as a poker pro/MMA nerd is great. Why mess with something that isn't broken?"
For the last two years (when I started to seriously get into MMA), my life has been a repeat of: wake up, work out, eat, nap, train MMA, eat again, and sleep - and I simply fill the gaps with a small amount of online grinding. Once in a while when there's an exciting major tournament somewhere cool, I go to that -- and try to find a fight gym worth training at as well.
Despite how content I was with everything, I still couldn't shake the idea. I talked to a few close and trusted friends and they thought it was a great opportunity for me. I thought back to my PokerStars days and how much fun it was to be part of a poker startup, to watch a business grow from infancy into something massive and awesome. At the same time, playing poker started to become less exciting to me. Ten WSOP cashes is great and all, but when you cash ten times, that's a ton of hours at the poker table (and no real big payoff, in my case). In the fall, I played only five live tournaments and had a 1st, 2nd and 4th. I ran super-hot in that period and yet I still wasn't sure if I wanted to play poker for a living. I thought, "if I'm not super-excited about poker when I'm running good, I'm a little worried what's going to happen when I start running bad..."
So I kept coming back to the Ultimate Poker thing. I had been mostly talking with their Chief Marketing Officer, Joe Versaci. Joe was North American Marketing Director at PokerStars for many years. Our respective Stars careers barely overlapped, but we know many of the same people, and the people I talked to all said great things about him. Joe not only wanted me because I had past experience starting up the PokerStars support team, but he also loved the idea that I'm a poker player who lives and breathes MMA and the UFC. So I said to Joe that I'd love to work for the company -- as long as you can promise that I'll still be able to train MMA the way I'm used to. When it came to salary, I didn't ask for a dollar more than they were offering; I only wanted the freedom. He agreed, and in fact told me that not only supported, but actually wanted me to fight and play major poker tournaments as it would be great for our brand. And that's why I'm sitting here with a real j-o-b in an actual o-f-f-i-c-e for the first time in nine years.
On one hand, it's a huge change for me. I know from experience that being part of a startup is crazy work. Stuff always goes wrong and there are always challenges and hurdles you didn't anticipate. But more than anything I'm excited. Excited to be hopefully a good team player and leader. Our Vegas office is a couple dozen employees and they're an awesome group who has welcomed me. We have a lot of fun in the office throwing around poker ideas as we stand on the precipice of the first legal real-money hand of online poker in the United States. There's so much talent here, all channeled towards the same goal, that I can't imagine anything other than success and good times.
As for what you'll be seeing from me: more of the same! Any time anyone ever sees me at a poker tournament, they want to know when I'll be fighting again. Well, I've now relocated (yes, legally) to the biggest fight town in the world. So, let's hope the answer to that question is, "soon!" And I'll still be at the WSOP; look for me rocking the Ultimate Poker gear at the tables. I might not have month-long training vacations in Thailand or be able to fly down to Australia or Europe as much, but I'll still be in the poker scene.
One of the nice things about having been successful and reasonably smart with my money over the years is that I only have to do this as long as it's fun, and if it stops being fun, I'll go do something else. That goes for poker, MMA, or working in a poker startup. But I'm loving the people and the environment so far, and I'm excited to be a part of something big. They say that when one door closes, another opens. But I've walked through a new door here, and I still get to keep the other ones open. Good deal for me!
But that's enough self-indulgent writing for now. If you'll excuse me, there's work to do to get Hand #1 dealt!
Saturday, June 9, 2012
a dozen days at the WSOP
Last month, I wrote about how motivated I was for this 2012 WSOP. I said I was confident, planning to play a lot, and play well. As we approach the two week mark, I've done all of these things, although the results have been a little bittersweet. I've played 8 events and cashed in 5 (which leads all players, and is a pace where I would surpass the all-time record of ten), but none of those cashes have been over five figures. The cashes combine for just $23429, and as of this writing I've played $13000 worth of events.
So things haven't exactly been spectacular. Still, the results inspire confidence. Despite the mincashes, I've managed to collect lots of chips every time I've cashed. (The exception was the PLO, which ended up being my highest cash and deepest finish.) Basically, I've just been having great luck on Day 1s and really bad luck on Day 2s.
The schedule has been pretty rough for me though. Each of those mincashes typically means about 15-18 hours spent at the Rio, plus commute time. That's a lot more hours than I've planned to book at the casino. I've only been to train jiujitsu a couple times, Muay Thai once, and other than that it's been very quick gym workouts at UNLV. Matt and I haven't even been able to set up our grappling mats in the house! On top of that my sleep has been pretty funky; I seem to only be able to consistently sleep five hours a night and in the afternoons and evenings I'm a bit of a zombie.
Nevertheless, I shouldn't complain. I'm up for the series so far, which ~90% of people aren't. It's been frustrating to have five cashes without a final table, but as I said I'm happy with how I've been playing, and this thing is not only one-third over. And, of course, tonight is the $5000 limit hold'em. I suppose might have a shot at a deep run in that one.
So things haven't exactly been spectacular. Still, the results inspire confidence. Despite the mincashes, I've managed to collect lots of chips every time I've cashed. (The exception was the PLO, which ended up being my highest cash and deepest finish.) Basically, I've just been having great luck on Day 1s and really bad luck on Day 2s.
The schedule has been pretty rough for me though. Each of those mincashes typically means about 15-18 hours spent at the Rio, plus commute time. That's a lot more hours than I've planned to book at the casino. I've only been to train jiujitsu a couple times, Muay Thai once, and other than that it's been very quick gym workouts at UNLV. Matt and I haven't even been able to set up our grappling mats in the house! On top of that my sleep has been pretty funky; I seem to only be able to consistently sleep five hours a night and in the afternoons and evenings I'm a bit of a zombie.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
the scary drive - Vancouver to Portland to Reno to Vegas
I've driven from Vancouver to Las Vegas seven times in my life, five of those for the WSOP. The most direct (and easy) route is the one pictured below, although a couple of times I've visited friends in southern California, so I've gone south down the I-5, then driven north to Vegas along the I-15.
This time, however, I was invited to stay with friends in Portland (and Portland is a great city I'm always happy to spend time in), so my trip looked a little different:
It's actually a fairly similar length, but the drive is much more treacherous. I suppose I should have done my homework on this, but this drive takes me through a part of Cascade Mountains where the elevation is over 5000 feet and I was hit by sub-zero temperatures, snow, and winding, icy roads. Keep in mind that I drive a Porsche Boxster with racing tires, which is not exactly ideal. Most of the cars that were driving along with me were SUVs and light trucks, many of them with ski racks. It was very very scary. I spun the tires exactly once on an uphill, and it was at that point that I decided to go into old-lady driving mode and hope for the best. At one point I pulled over at a gas station to call a friend and have him check the weather and elevation going forward. Luckily at that point I had gotten the worst of it already and the rest of the drive was much less dangerous.
I wouldn't have dared taking a picture at the most dangerous parts, but once the traffic cleared up and the road got a little more manageable, I still managed to quickly get this one off.
After traversing the Cascades, one would think that things would be getting a lot less dangerous, but that wouldn't be the case. While driving through northeast California, I started getting some cold/flu symptoms. Now, driving isn't exactly a strenuous physical activity, but I was worried because I was getting very tired and sleepy. I pulled over a couple of times to recover and noticed I was getting the chills. A 10-hour driving day will give my body aches under the best of circumstances, but I was definitely feeling much more achy than usual. I could also tell my mental acuity and physical coordination was off: when I did actually arrive at my stop for the night in Reno, I noticed that I was fumbling objects when I went to pick them up, bumping into things, and just generally out of it.
I left Reno for Las Vegas early Saturday morning, but a little over an hour into my drive I pulled into a Walmart parking lot and slept in my car for an hour. Feeling sick, I didn't really feel like coffee, but the nap helped a bit and I continued onwards. I would end up stopping on nearly an hourly basis, including a second nap at a rest stop about four hours outside of Vegas. I now had a new problem that concerned me: my vision was getting blurry. I have laser-corrected and thus pretty much perfect vision, but my eyes were really fatigued. Signs that I would easily be able to read normally at 400 metres were unreadable to me at 100 metres. Especially when I shifted my eyes to look at something else (the rear-view mirror, for example) then went back to look at the road, my vision would become totally blurry. I would often see cars off in the distance to find that there was in fact, no car; that what I was seeing was just a signpost or something. The road from Reno to Las Vegas is pretty much all monotonous desert and that didn't help things. It was very scary to be driving along at 75mph in such a compromised physical state. I think I will definitely look harder for a co-pilot on the trip back to Vancouver.
The good news is that I've finally made it safely to Las Vegas. Still running a slight fever, still not feeling great, but hopefully good enough to play the $1500 tomorrow. That first event is always awesome and it would suck to miss it.
Good luck, everyone!
This time, however, I was invited to stay with friends in Portland (and Portland is a great city I'm always happy to spend time in), so my trip looked a little different:
It's actually a fairly similar length, but the drive is much more treacherous. I suppose I should have done my homework on this, but this drive takes me through a part of Cascade Mountains where the elevation is over 5000 feet and I was hit by sub-zero temperatures, snow, and winding, icy roads. Keep in mind that I drive a Porsche Boxster with racing tires, which is not exactly ideal. Most of the cars that were driving along with me were SUVs and light trucks, many of them with ski racks. It was very very scary. I spun the tires exactly once on an uphill, and it was at that point that I decided to go into old-lady driving mode and hope for the best. At one point I pulled over at a gas station to call a friend and have him check the weather and elevation going forward. Luckily at that point I had gotten the worst of it already and the rest of the drive was much less dangerous.
I wouldn't have dared taking a picture at the most dangerous parts, but once the traffic cleared up and the road got a little more manageable, I still managed to quickly get this one off.
After traversing the Cascades, one would think that things would be getting a lot less dangerous, but that wouldn't be the case. While driving through northeast California, I started getting some cold/flu symptoms. Now, driving isn't exactly a strenuous physical activity, but I was worried because I was getting very tired and sleepy. I pulled over a couple of times to recover and noticed I was getting the chills. A 10-hour driving day will give my body aches under the best of circumstances, but I was definitely feeling much more achy than usual. I could also tell my mental acuity and physical coordination was off: when I did actually arrive at my stop for the night in Reno, I noticed that I was fumbling objects when I went to pick them up, bumping into things, and just generally out of it.
I left Reno for Las Vegas early Saturday morning, but a little over an hour into my drive I pulled into a Walmart parking lot and slept in my car for an hour. Feeling sick, I didn't really feel like coffee, but the nap helped a bit and I continued onwards. I would end up stopping on nearly an hourly basis, including a second nap at a rest stop about four hours outside of Vegas. I now had a new problem that concerned me: my vision was getting blurry. I have laser-corrected and thus pretty much perfect vision, but my eyes were really fatigued. Signs that I would easily be able to read normally at 400 metres were unreadable to me at 100 metres. Especially when I shifted my eyes to look at something else (the rear-view mirror, for example) then went back to look at the road, my vision would become totally blurry. I would often see cars off in the distance to find that there was in fact, no car; that what I was seeing was just a signpost or something. The road from Reno to Las Vegas is pretty much all monotonous desert and that didn't help things. It was very scary to be driving along at 75mph in such a compromised physical state. I think I will definitely look harder for a co-pilot on the trip back to Vancouver.
The good news is that I've finally made it safely to Las Vegas. Still running a slight fever, still not feeling great, but hopefully good enough to play the $1500 tomorrow. That first event is always awesome and it would suck to miss it.
Good luck, everyone!
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
World Serious of Poker
The WSOP is just 20 days away. This excites me. This will be my seventh full year at the WSOP, but it still never fails to get my juices flowing.
By my count, I have played 113 WSOP (Las Vegas) events, collecting 17 cashes, 4 final tables, and zero bracelets. It's an unspectacular record, but a solid one, and the number at the bottom of my spreadsheet says that coming to the WSOP has been good for the bankroll.
But it's for far more than any financial reward that the WSOP is my favourite time of year. It's summer camp not just for the pros who play it, but also the recreational players, employees, media, and anyone connected to the poker world. It's the time of year where almost the entire poker world descends upon just one town; when you never eat dinner alone and you can pretty much always find someone to do whatever it is you want to do in that very instant. Whether it's to rail a final table, celebrate a bracelet, or commiserate over a bad beat, it's about the people.
But for me, the upcoming WSOP feels a little bit different. Within my closest circle of friends -- the guys who comprise what is often referred to as the "Math of Poker House" -- there is some feeling that the band is breaking up. At least one person has expressed the idea that this will be his last full WSOP. Another of our group is working on a new startup and will skip the main event (gasp!). Yet another will be foregoing the tournaments entirely, only dropping in on occasion to play cash games. And I find myself questioning my motivation to play poker for a living more and more these days. I've been in the game a long time now, and it's getting hard to compete with the young lions who are passionate about grinding the long hours and putting in their work. If you follow this blog at all, you know that the passion for the game that made me into a strong poker player has been diverted towards the goal of making myself the best mixed martial artist I can be.
But if 2012 truly is the last hurrah, then I'm determined to go out with a bang, not a whimper. I've still got some swagger when it comes to poker, and I still think I'm pretty darn good, even if the competition has gotten tough too. I know I don't have much control over my results over the space of a couple dozen tournaments; no one does. But I have full control over how well I play in them. My goal is to say that from Event 2 to the time I bust out of the main event, I played well in every tournament and gave myself the best shot to win each one. Whether it's the last kick at the can or not, I think I owe myself that.
By my count, I have played 113 WSOP (Las Vegas) events, collecting 17 cashes, 4 final tables, and zero bracelets. It's an unspectacular record, but a solid one, and the number at the bottom of my spreadsheet says that coming to the WSOP has been good for the bankroll.
But it's for far more than any financial reward that the WSOP is my favourite time of year. It's summer camp not just for the pros who play it, but also the recreational players, employees, media, and anyone connected to the poker world. It's the time of year where almost the entire poker world descends upon just one town; when you never eat dinner alone and you can pretty much always find someone to do whatever it is you want to do in that very instant. Whether it's to rail a final table, celebrate a bracelet, or commiserate over a bad beat, it's about the people.
But for me, the upcoming WSOP feels a little bit different. Within my closest circle of friends -- the guys who comprise what is often referred to as the "Math of Poker House" -- there is some feeling that the band is breaking up. At least one person has expressed the idea that this will be his last full WSOP. Another of our group is working on a new startup and will skip the main event (gasp!). Yet another will be foregoing the tournaments entirely, only dropping in on occasion to play cash games. And I find myself questioning my motivation to play poker for a living more and more these days. I've been in the game a long time now, and it's getting hard to compete with the young lions who are passionate about grinding the long hours and putting in their work. If you follow this blog at all, you know that the passion for the game that made me into a strong poker player has been diverted towards the goal of making myself the best mixed martial artist I can be.
But if 2012 truly is the last hurrah, then I'm determined to go out with a bang, not a whimper. I've still got some swagger when it comes to poker, and I still think I'm pretty darn good, even if the competition has gotten tough too. I know I don't have much control over my results over the space of a couple dozen tournaments; no one does. But I have full control over how well I play in them. My goal is to say that from Event 2 to the time I bust out of the main event, I played well in every tournament and gave myself the best shot to win each one. Whether it's the last kick at the can or not, I think I owe myself that.
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