Played all Sunday night since I didn't feel like trying to wake up for a 5 AM cab ride to the LAX flyaway. Still finished about 2k vpps shy of the bonus, but up about $650 on the day which gave me some more reasons to smile. Probably not the smartest thing to do, but I played after my parents went to bed around 10 until about 1:30 AM to try to release the rest of the bonus. So, even though I'd been awake (sans a 20 minute nap on one of the flights) from noon Sunday until 10 PM Monday, I still played about 30 games until I felt like I'd fall asleep at the desk. Plus, I didn't have my 30" monitor to help tile/cascade tables so it was mostly done on the lappy and my parents' monitor. Got another 1k vpps taken care of, though. Weeeee.
Finally plowed through the rest of it tonight in between dinner (my Dad grills the best damn pork ribs in the world) and my sis' rehearsal (she's directing a community theatre show in town) then went out and drank with some friends - partly to celebrate my sister's birthday and partly to, at least internally, celebrate the end of that freakin' 4k bonus.
November's poker is over and it's time to be honest. I wrote down a goal that I wanted to get 10k profit and 7.5k in bonuses prior to the new year, but I just don't think it's possible. This month really wasn't all bad - I got 4k in the bonus column released...BUT, I lost $151 dollars from November 1st to today. It's really not all bad though, I lost 3k over the first 2 weeks and then won it all back over the past 5 days or so (yes, after I realized that I needed to readjust and get back to the poker I'd played in Sept/Oct). In December I will definitely get the last 20k vpps I need to release the 2k vpp milestone bonus given for reaching 200k vpps in a year and will release another 1.5k bonus during that time (completing the 7.5k bonus goal), but I don't think it's likely that I can play enough games to get 10k profit in that time. Especially because one of the 3 weekends I'll be back on the West Coast will be spent in Vegas. It's just not likely, but maybe that'll be ample motivation for January (maybe many regs will take the month off to relax, too).
Since getting back less than two days ago, it's kinda weird to talk to people you know and have them ask the same two questions at some point in the conversation: "Have you gotten any gigs in LA yet?" and"So, what are you doing for money?" I'm able to diffuse the first question easily - "Yeah, TONS! It's like I walked into the LA area and everyone just said 'Wow, we've never had a trombone player out here before'." At which point, it's understood that it takes a long time to get legitimate, solid work playing music in any major city in America. Yes, I've taken lessons with some fantastic players here, but I probably won't see any great gigs for several more months...it's just the nature of the beast. The second question, though, is a lot more uncomfortable to discuss. My parents don't feel all that comfortable with me playing poker for a living and most of my friends think that I could "lose all my winnings in one hand." If it's someone that I don't feel will understand or accept my current financial situation, I drop the old "I saved a lot before moving out there [blatant lie] and some of my friends can get me some side jobs at E! or in production work when things get tough [very possible, but probably won't come up]." Usually, though, I just try to avoid talking money with people altogether. What's the point?
Is it worth trying to explain how much time I've spent working on sngs? Is it worth trying to explain how long it took me to make a paltry 30k at sngs? Is it worth trying to explain how I made absolutely no physical profit over 1500 sngs in November? Is it worth trying to explain (again) why someone should not even think about trying to start playing poker for a livign? In a word, hell no (yeah, that's two words. Bite me). The next four days will give me a lot of time to practice avoiding that question, I guess. My extended family is huge and we're all close (not proximity-wise, just that everyone gets along really well), so it's gonna get asked a lot.
Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all, shut the hell up. It's an adapted Family Guy quote, sue me.
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