Suitedjustice's Ongoing Mid-life Crisis

Happy New Year Morph! I haven't checked on a support network. I'm just going to try not playing. I've already resisted the urge a dozen times this morning, so it's going to be a slog, but admitting that I have a problem was a necessary start.

Also fortunately: I have an outdated console that hasn't garnered any exciting new games for a while, so that ought to make it easier to quit.

Would be hilarious if GA took that on, too. If so, imagine you would go to a meeting... 😃

"My name is suitedjustice, and I have a gaming problem. No, not that kind."

Happy new year, sj. Hope it goes well for you, and you have success in meeting your goals.

Happy new year Mr. suited. You are the endboss of challenges. Oh wait :p

...

I don't trust myself not to run my mouth about +EV gambling, and if there's one place in the world to read the room and keep quiet about that, it's at a GA meeting.

My name is suited and my gambling problem is that I don't gamble enough, but I intend to finally fix that this year.

Happy New Year, golddog!

Happy New Year, Fire! I see what you did there.

Those games really are a timesuck. I can brag that I beat the tough, secret ending of Cyberpunk 2077 on the hardest setting, but in the time I took to grind up to that supposed achievement, I missed out on thousands upon thousands of dollars in EV.

Upthread I described the Pee-Wee Herman character as "childlike", and today I ran into a short interview where Tim Burton and Richard Ayoade piss all over that exact description. I guess I'll have to up my word game.

I was able to coax myself out to the casino yesterday and pick up $40 or so from the machines. I didn't manage to get myself on to the poker table.

Closer to home: every night for the past few weeks, I've been a video game protagonist in all of my dreams. I've put the controller down for this year, but still I've spent my sleeping hours either fetching items or eliminating enemies.

Last night, during a briefly awake pee break, I asked myself: am I really killing people in my dreams? Yes. I am. But I'm kind of like striking them and then they're merely disappearing, so my dreamland NPC mass murder spree has been rated Teen at worst...so far.

Which is fortunate, considering how many hours I've put into various Fallout games, most of which feature the Bloody Mess perk.

NSFW gore in spoiler.

Spoiler

Show

I don't know if it was Barry Greenstein or another poker pro, but I remember the writer claiming that he noticed a change playing on one New Year's Eve. The game got wilder and wilder as midnight approached, and then suddenly it turned into a nitfest after the ball dropped; same players at the table.

I'll try to play next New Year's Eve to see if I can replicate that.

Happy new year SJ, I’ll say it here so hopefully it isn’t good next year and I can stay home but thanksgiving eve and nye two best days for slots ainec. March madness or NFL playoffs might be better just due to more days but wow there were some crazy plays nye. New 2k taxable minimum is great too. Hope you crush syndicate campers in 2026!

I seem to recall it was Mike Caro that wrote about the extreme change in action after midnight on NY eve. But could be wrong of course.

Happy New Year Lionelhuttz! May the RNG gods bring majors, megas, jackpots and colossal wins to you this year.

Yeah, the hand pay increase was a long time coming. I'm still steaming over one $25/spin Treasure Box play two years ago where I was $1500 in, $1300 out, and on the hook for about $350 in taxes on my $200 loss.

Hi jrrdesert! I think you're correct about it being Mike Caro.

Last night I left a $100 ticket in a machine, as I do very occasionally—yet all too often. I left the ticket in the first machine in a row of four Ultimate X video poker machines, and I was still in the same row, on the fourth machine, when I realized it.

By that time, an elderly gentleman had sat down at the first machine, and the following conversation ensued...

Me: Excuse me. Did I leave a $100 ticket in that machine?
Old Man: Uhhhhhh?
Me: Yes, I think I did.
Old Man: Uhhhhhh.
Me: $100.34, if I recall correctly.
Old Man: Uhhhhhh?
Me: Do you want me to call security? We can get this ironed out.
Old Man: Uhhhhhh.

The old man cashed out the ticket and handed it to me. There was $102.73 on it. He had popped his own ticket for two dollars and change into the machine. I handed him $3 and thanked him. He left immediately.

This is why I never carry more than $300 on a slot ticket; I can't trust myself to cash out 100% of the time, and someday it's going to bite me in the ass, but it's going to be a sub-$300 bite.

After that, I had two good slot sessions bookending my poker session, racking up almost $400 in slots and $100 in poker over a 9 hour night.

At the table, we had a young Dominican player who insisted on seeing the river with any piece for any price, and he felted player after player with miracle river spikes, racking up a $2000 stack at $1/$2 in less than 3 hours.

He was also bluffing a fair amount, so one could not just fold to him when he woke up with a big bet or raise on the river.

I got burned by his 82o with my overpair, 8 on the flop, 2 on the river. This was not a limped pot; I had opened to $18 with QQ, knowing that he would call with anything.

Fortunately for me, he missed a couple of miracle rivers towards the end of the session, and I was able to claw my money back, plus a little bit.

done the same a bunch and once misplaced a ticket so well i thought i lost it (was tucked away with some sports betting tickets) and the casino security's "um what do you expect us to do about it?" response was pretty scary

just last weekend i popped a ticket into the machine, realize i left my card in the old machine 10 feet away and went to get it - see a woman approaching the machine with some urgency to sit down (a big obvious play was visible)

i point out "hey that's my machine i just walked over to grab my card, see there's my money in there already" she sits down on the machine next to mine and says "oh it's ok i wasn't going to play on your money anyway i always read the rules first" and then starts reading the rules of the game right next to me which i found very odd but ok whatever

i run the play out (only takes 2 spins) and then cash out and leave - she stays there continuing to read the rules

before i thought she was just trying to do the play i found as i recognized her as another ap earlier in the day (she's a white woman so stands out massively - most aps are asian men and women, followed by white men and small dose of middle eastern men, can count on one hand how many white women i've seen doing this and can count with my nose how many blacks and indians i've ever seen doing this)

so now i'm convinced that she was going for the money because why play dumb and insist that even if she had sat down, my money would have been safe because she was going to read the rules first - she keeps apologizing while i finish the play and then once i turn the corner she immediately ceases the charade of reading the rules and goes back to checking machines

Heh SJ, did you finish Suttree? I’m actually reading it right now. Really seems up your alley. Like a better Cannery Row.

Several times I have tried to jump on a machine that was +EV when the normie had stepped away from it, but found to my dismay that they were still playing and had credits in it. I've just apologized profusely and moved on—keeping it simple—rather than making up a dumb, phony excuse. I've never jumped on an unoccupied machine for the credits, and I imagine that you haven't either.

At some point early in my career it was impressed on me that credit vultures get trespassed with extreme prejudice. That may or may not be true, because I can't remember from where I got that idea; it might have been from a novel for all that I can remember.

Regarding demographics: If I was a Black woman, I would be a card counter for sure, given what I know about the floor and security personnel's apparent focus on White male blackjack players.

I finished Suttree and I liked it a lot. I had no idea that Cormac McCarthy had that kind of low-key, small everyday events gear to him, having read the bombastic, hardcase and blood-soaked Blood Meridian, The Road, and No Country for Old Men.

You can imagine that I liked the character of Suttree for living life on his own terms and answering to no one. Another thing about him that struck me is that he doesn't really seem to like himself, but almost everyone around him, including me, likes him a lot. That's a hard trick for McCarthy to convey and pull off in the limited third person viewpoint.

It's good stuff.

A quick music history moment:

It is generally taught that in the early 90s grunge music hit the collective like a rogue tsunami and swept away the lucrative and once-mighty late 80s hair metal genre.

This is not exactly the case. There was a traceable transition, of sorts, from one genre to the other.

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Example 4

I never saw him while I was out there. He may have wrapped it up by 2018.

Quitting video games has me posting here more, for good or for ill. It also has me going out to the casino more, which was my stated intention, so nice.

Yesterday I went out for a short session. The main floor machines had a fair amount of plays in them; the poker room machines were completely checked over and depleted. After years of checking this property, I'm still baffled more than occasionally by what I find. I ended up (-$20) on the slots after 2 hours. I also played a 2 hour poker session at a wild and splashy table, brought about by a gentleman on my left whose VPIP and PFR percentages were running around 85/70.

VPIP tracks the Voluntarily Put money In Preflop percentage, and PFR tracks the PreFlop Raise percentage. At 8-handed tables, solid TAG stats run around 20/17. Loose Passive stats hit around 40/10, and maniac stats start at around 40/30.

I was largely card dead for 2 hours, and made most of my +$79 just catching a good hand multiway, betting the flop big, getting calls, then betting the turn and getting folds—where I thought I was going to get at least one call.

I left because freezing rain was predicted for the night, otherwise I would have stayed at that table for as long as it stayed profitable.

I mean, what kind of God invents freezing rain? Probably one that gets a laugh from watching men and animals fall down. Makes you think.

Having my first beer at a bar in 2 years.

Mighty Squirrel Rotational Stout. Name sounds like a TV show's parody of what a snooty craft beer would be named. In any case, it's black as midnight and tasty as all getout, and paid for with slot points. I'm having just one, then heading to family dinner.

This is sort of odd for me to see. I drink several times a week and I’m doing dry January. You who hasn't had a drink in a couple years is having a beer in January.

Good luck with your dry January, Da_Nit! I miss one thing about sobriety already, and that is waking up feeling great.

Frank Sinatra quipped, “I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they wake up in the morning, that is the best they are going to feel all day," but that feeling is a feature, not something to pity or ridicule.

I haven't gotten drunk yet, so I haven't had a hangover, but I've noticed that even just moderate drinking the day before makes me feel a little off in the morning; say 90-95% instead of a hundo.

How often are you drinking?

The last 8 days? Somewhere between the average American and Australian frequencies. Quantity, however, has been light to moderate.