LogGrad98
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Ahem
This is the end
- Thread starter Gameface
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Ahem
Lot's of reasons. First, because the chips are worth more now than when I bought them. I bought them for $0.93/per during the pre-sale before they were manufactured. I was active in the thread on chiptalk.net when the design was being discussed and finalized.
But really, when I was looking to buy a set of high end chips I wanted ASM chips.
If you're interested in the journey, start here... https://forums.homepokertourney.com/index.php?topic=3642.0
I just don't use them enough, and I'm not really looking to use them a lot more. I'm not as into poker as I was. Plus, it's a lot of work to host a 20 person poker tournament. Besides that, I've never really been able to get the kind of game going that I want. After more than 10 years of hosting games I'd really like to play at slightly higher stakes but I think most of my potential players want to be at $20 for a buy-in. Typically, if I win a tournament it means I break even based on what I spend to host. That's not anyone's fault, but I'm trying to host a game that I want to play in.
I've also found that I don't enjoy playing poker when I'm also hosting. It got to the point where I'd almost rather host and not play. But how dumb would that be, really? I can't make money from hosting, so why the hell would I host if I didn't want to play? That's pretty much where I'm at. The chips are worth a lot, I can use the money to do a few things I want to do. I'm going to put a deep sink in my garage (brewery) coat the floors, put panels on the drywall, etc. Plus I just bought a used car that I want to do some work to. So I can use the money.
And I'm kind of back where I started. I might get a smaller set of ASM chips that I design myself and that have a custom inlay. That's what I really wanted before I bought the Paulson's.
As dumb as the dream was, since I was younger than 10 I wanted "real" casino chips. I also wanted to own a Monopoly set (it exists) that has solid gold tokens and cost more than $1 million in the 80s. I ended up with the set of real casino chips.
When I was 6 my best friend and I would divide up a set of 100 Bicycle plastic interlocking poker chips, the kind you can buy at the grocery store, and play heads-up 5 card draw.
At 9 I bought my first set of plastic playing cards, KEM Arrows.
When I was 14 I bought my first poker book, "Winning poker for the serious player."
When I was 17 I tried to find out if they'd let a 17 year old watch people play poker in Wendover... they don't.
When I was 19 I rented a room in a hotel and tried to organize a poker game. I had to really search to find a hotel that would rent a room to a 19 year old. It was in Provo. When I got to the hotel they wouldn't let me rent the room because I was checking in with my girlfriend (wife now) and they don't rent rooms to unmarried couples. Poker game cancelled.
When I was 23 I joined the U.S. Navy. On my first deployment, in 2003, I suggested we play poker. My LPO (Leading Petty Officer) grew up in Reno in an LDS family who dealt table games in the casinos. He was against gambling and shut it down.
On my second deployment I was the work center supervisor and that LPO had been transferred. I started hosting poker games 6 nights a week while underway. We started a league and played 82 regular season league games during our deployment ($10 buy-in, $9 to the prize pool, $1 to the championship game prize pool). I finished first in the league and second in the final game. The total prize pool for the championship game was over 1000.
When I left the Navy I bought the chips I'm selling now.
I built two poker tables.
I joined the Salt Lake City Poker Meetup Group.
I was in the first poker league that was part of the SLCPMG, I finished 4th in the regular season and took 4th in the championship game.
I hosted games as part of the SLCPMG. Lot's of really good players in that group. Felt like I was paying twice, offering a top-notch setting, paying my buy-in and getting beat constantly.
I started hosting games for jazzfanz.com posters. Awesome games. Awesome people. I won my fair share of games.
I became unemployed for an extended period of time. Couldn't really play or host very often.
I got employed. Tried to pick things back up, but there was much less enthusiasm. Poker was going out of style again, just like it was through most of the 90s. Had to really scramble and scrape to get a full game. Nobody wanted to play for anything more than pocket change. They wanted the high roller experience for $20. I got bored. I got tired of subsidizing a top-tier poker experience for people who complained about it costing more than $20.
My boss expressed his interest in hosting a poker league. I thought he meant he would be a 50/50 partner in organizing the league. He wasn't. I did 90% of the work. He did not have the commitment to running a quality league I expected. On our final game, because he had other plans, he changed the blind schedule without saying anything to any of us about it. I laid a pretty satisfying bluff on him to take most of his chips and then nailed him the next hand with solid cards and knocked him out. I tried to organize another poker league without him but he thought he was still a co-host and there was no way I was going to put my reputation into another league he was part of, so I bowed out. League didn't happen.
Life goes on. I was no longer interested in hosting poker games.
Selling my chips next weekend.
Might get a custom set of ASMs and host the occasional cash game. Done with poker tournaments. Done with tiny stakes. If I can't host a grown-up level game then I don't want to host. Most people who want the $20 buy-in wouldn't turn their car around if a $20 bill flew out their window, yet they can't put $40 on a game they claim to want to play. I'm done with that. Love many of those people. But they can host a poker game for $20 if that's what they want. I won't play in it because they'll be playing on a surface that doesn't work, with chips that won't stack 10 high with out falling over, with paper cards that have wear that can be used to tell what cards are what from the back-side. But if they want a $20 game they should have fun with their $20 game.
I'll enjoy my $5000 I get from selling my chips and other gear. I could host games every week for the next 5 years and I wouldn't win $5000. Not even if I won every game. Not even if I didn't count the cost of hosting.
Easy decision.
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But speaking of my new car. It's a 2004 Volvo S60 R AWD. Inline 2.5l 5 cylinder high pressure turbo engine producing 300hp with 90k miles.
I'm really excited about it, but there is some work that needs to be done. Most urgent is the suspension. Buying OEM but not genuine Volvo parts it's gonna cost about $1500 to replace the front struts along with the mount bearing and related parts and the rear shocks. They are electronically controlled. And the price is just for parts. I'm going to do the work.
Anyway, this is not a pic of my car but same color and model year.
I'm really excited about it, but there is some work that needs to be done. Most urgent is the suspension. Buying OEM but not genuine Volvo parts it's gonna cost about $1500 to replace the front struts along with the mount bearing and related parts and the rear shocks. They are electronically controlled. And the price is just for parts. I'm going to do the work.
Anyway, this is not a pic of my car but same color and model year.
I'm probably one of those guys who didn't want to play for a lot of money. To start, I have no problem with anything said. But then again, if $20 flew out of my car, I would absolutely turn around for it. Also, I wouldn't have a problem playing every once in a while for higher stakes, but I absolutely have no interest in doing a league where the buy-in was $50+ every time.
It's great that you'll make money on your set up. Good for you. It all comes down to get the most enjoyment out of your money. If something isn't fun anymore, move on.
It's great that you'll make money on your set up. Good for you. It all comes down to get the most enjoyment out of your money. If something isn't fun anymore, move on.
Possible custom chip designs.
This would be a cash oriented set of chips. This is just a place holder inlay. I'd have to come up with my own inlay.
$0.25 chip
$1 chip
$5 chip
$25 chip
anyone interested in messing around with their chip design tool, it's here: http://www.pokerchipdesigntool.com/
This would be a cash oriented set of chips. This is just a place holder inlay. I'd have to come up with my own inlay.
$0.25 chip
$1 chip
$5 chip
$25 chip
anyone interested in messing around with their chip design tool, it's here: http://www.pokerchipdesigntool.com/
I was never into higher stake tournaments even when I was playing the $100-$200 cash tables on a daily basis. I pretty much only play tournaments for the social aspect of them, and most don't want to sit down with a couple hundred bucks, the ability to rebuy at any time, and the ability to walk away anytime you want.
I don't blame anyone for the stakes they want to play at. No one owed me higher stakes.
But for me, what I want out of poker, it is not entertaining for me to play a social poker tournament. Well, that's not true. It is. But that's not what scratches that deeper itch.
A big reason I've hosted poker games, and I've said this before, was a sort of self help thing. I'm not very social. I don't delude myself into thinking that's healthy. I had enough of a passion for poker to get myself out of my comfort zone and invite strange people into my house. And despite being the host and everything else, many times I still managed to be the most awkward person in the room.
I have been greatly enriched by the experiences I've had hosting poker games. And besides the game I ran on the USS Nimitz, the jazzfanz games are my most cherished. I've met many awesome people. I've also benefited from those interactions far beyond poker. It has been well worth it. I hope all of you who have come know that. I've gotten everything out of hosting that I could have hoped for.
But as far as poker is concerned... I have never set out to host a social poker game. I have always endeavored to host a poker game that serious poker players would appreciate. Little things. I've said many times "I want to host a game that I would want to play in." I've done that.
Funny enough, the games that got sidetracked the most were the ones I enjoyed the most. But it was always a guilty pleasure because I knew there were people waiting to get back to poker, and I had committed to hosting a tightly ran poker game.
Poker, for me, is deeply interesting because people are placed in stressful situations and they need to make decisions under pressure with several eyes on them. That's what I love most about poker. I don't have to be in the hand. I love to watch someone struggling to decide what they should do. The stakes have damn near everything to do with how that works. Now for me, if I put $100 on a poker tournament, I care enough to get stressed about the decisions I'm making. At $20? Not really. And people willing to pay $20 because they enjoy the social aspect and don't care so much about poker? Yeah, the stress level isn't there for the really juicy stuff I crave. And that's what it comes down to, ultimately.
I'm kind of bouncing around in my own head right now, but I hope to host fun get together stuff at my house in the future. I've considered buying a shuffleboard table, or hosting a board game night, or a spades league. Stuff that isn't based on money to make the game interesting. Without sufficient stakes poker is just a card lotto. If no one cares about winning or losing enough to get worked up about it there is nothing intriguing about poker.
Anyway, bottom line, I love you guys. This isn't me telling BigB or anyone else they suck because they don't want to play at the stakes I want them to play at. I just don't think I'm interested in hosting poker tournaments anymore. I never built the player base for the game I wanted. The irony is that I could have played at the stakes I wanted and had players ready to play in that game... but they would have been players playing down to my game, players who normally played higher stakes than I was comfortable playing in. So I kind of was just in the wrong place as far as that's concerned.
I'm gonna end this, but the conflict between wanting to play poker and wanting to be a quality host could keep me going for several more paragraphs. It was just not right for me anymore and I couldn't figure out how to make it right.
But for me, what I want out of poker, it is not entertaining for me to play a social poker tournament. Well, that's not true. It is. But that's not what scratches that deeper itch.
A big reason I've hosted poker games, and I've said this before, was a sort of self help thing. I'm not very social. I don't delude myself into thinking that's healthy. I had enough of a passion for poker to get myself out of my comfort zone and invite strange people into my house. And despite being the host and everything else, many times I still managed to be the most awkward person in the room.
I have been greatly enriched by the experiences I've had hosting poker games. And besides the game I ran on the USS Nimitz, the jazzfanz games are my most cherished. I've met many awesome people. I've also benefited from those interactions far beyond poker. It has been well worth it. I hope all of you who have come know that. I've gotten everything out of hosting that I could have hoped for.
But as far as poker is concerned... I have never set out to host a social poker game. I have always endeavored to host a poker game that serious poker players would appreciate. Little things. I've said many times "I want to host a game that I would want to play in." I've done that.
Funny enough, the games that got sidetracked the most were the ones I enjoyed the most. But it was always a guilty pleasure because I knew there were people waiting to get back to poker, and I had committed to hosting a tightly ran poker game.
Poker, for me, is deeply interesting because people are placed in stressful situations and they need to make decisions under pressure with several eyes on them. That's what I love most about poker. I don't have to be in the hand. I love to watch someone struggling to decide what they should do. The stakes have damn near everything to do with how that works. Now for me, if I put $100 on a poker tournament, I care enough to get stressed about the decisions I'm making. At $20? Not really. And people willing to pay $20 because they enjoy the social aspect and don't care so much about poker? Yeah, the stress level isn't there for the really juicy stuff I crave. And that's what it comes down to, ultimately.
I'm kind of bouncing around in my own head right now, but I hope to host fun get together stuff at my house in the future. I've considered buying a shuffleboard table, or hosting a board game night, or a spades league. Stuff that isn't based on money to make the game interesting. Without sufficient stakes poker is just a card lotto. If no one cares about winning or losing enough to get worked up about it there is nothing intriguing about poker.
Anyway, bottom line, I love you guys. This isn't me telling BigB or anyone else they suck because they don't want to play at the stakes I want them to play at. I just don't think I'm interested in hosting poker tournaments anymore. I never built the player base for the game I wanted. The irony is that I could have played at the stakes I wanted and had players ready to play in that game... but they would have been players playing down to my game, players who normally played higher stakes than I was comfortable playing in. So I kind of was just in the wrong place as far as that's concerned.
I'm gonna end this, but the conflict between wanting to play poker and wanting to be a quality host could keep me going for several more paragraphs. It was just not right for me anymore and I couldn't figure out how to make it right.
I for one really dislike Poker. I played competitively for a little bit for higher stakes and realized I didnt enjoy it. It took a bit to come to your poker parties but I ended up having a blast. I only play poker to hang out with people and drink some beers but I understand if you want a competitive higher stakes game that can be frustrating to play social games.