The new guy (OFC 2-7)

So I woke up this morning and there was a new user sitting waiting for action at the OFC tables. Score! If you've been following along you know that nobody's been playing me lately, so I was excited.

Unfortunately it turned out that this guy knew what he was doing. We played five rounds, and he never made a significant mistake that I could spot. Both of us were running ludicrously hot. He made 15-card fantasyland twice, one of which included a royal. I made three kings in regular play and some fantasylands that were high-scoring but not spectacular. I ended up getting a little better of it, coming away with $19.18. And after 45 minutes I quit, because however action-starved I am it's not worth continuing to play this guy. If somebody doesn't make a mistake in five rounds he's not going to make enough of them to account for the rake, and either he'll beat me or we'll both end up losing.

One thing I've learned in fourteen years of doing this: if you don't have a real reason to play you're better off doing almost anything else. Even a fun game like OFC isn't worth putting your time into if you're not making money at it, and might be losing it. If you really want practice it's pretty easy to find someone to play you for free.

I've seen a lot of poker players end up in bad places because they were more interested in action than the quality of action. Don't be them.