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Confessions of a Recreational Player
I am a recreational poker player. I don’t have a “bankroll” as much as I have “online money that I play poker with.” I don’t use PokerTracker. I could care less what my SharkScope stats are. I play poker for camaraderie, competition, enjoyment, entertainment, and well, we all like to win a little money.
Not everyone who plays cards online has grand aspirations of playing at the Bellagio’s “Big Game” one day. The only way you will ever see me on “High Stakes Poker” is if I crashed it like some crazy naked football streaker. I’d be the on in the background holding up my “Otto410” sign like it was “John 3:16”. I have online friends who are constantly talking about “grinding it out” at low limit tables and “building their bankroll”. For me, the thought of playing a $.05/.10 NL ring game for 6 hours a day is tantamount to having bamboo shoved under my fingernails. Can I afford to play $100/200 limit or $10/20 NL? Sure. I have a good job and I make pretty good money. But I also have a wife and four kids. I have no intentions of packing them up and moving to Atlantic City or Las Vegas or sitting at my computer all day trying to win that one big bet per hour.
Everyone’s motivation for playing online is different. Some are college kids trying to make a little extra money. Some are retirees with a bunch of free time. Some are low-level professional poker players making a living. Some have the dream of playing with the likes of Phil Ivey. And some are like me, a guy with a day job who likes to play cards on the side and doesn’t want to watch “Dancing with the Stars” with my wife. Don’t assume that your opponents have the same motivation that you do. I am the guy looking for entertainment. A $5+.50 45-person MTT will buy me (usually) at least an hour’s worth of play. That certainly beats the price of two movie tickets (and the popcorn, and the drink, and the Milk Duds, and the babysitter, and the gas, and the… well you get the point.) Come see me if you get the chance. I’ll be the guy playing the $5 to $10 buy-in events after the kids are in bed, the wife and I have discussed the day’s events, and the kitchen is clean.
