A Typical Day

I get out of bed around noon or 1:00 so I have enough time to wake up before the live game starts at 2:30. Sometimes I walk to the bakery to get a pain au chocolat, but the last few days I've just been making myself an omelette and coffee in the apartment. If I have to do chores like shopping or cleaning up the apartment I'll try to do that in the morning. Otherwise I do some non-playing poker activity (that is, poker-related but not actually playing) like going through PokerTracker stats, reading 2+2 forum postings, or watching videos on DeucesCracked.

I head over to the live game, which is at a poker club two blocks away from my apartment, around 2:00 to make sure I get a seat. If I get there early I try to speak French with the guys there for a few minutes. Generally I play until the game breaks (usually around 7:00) or until I lose my three 50 euro buy-ins, whichever comes first. My gameplan is to push premium hands hard, either shoving all-in right away or betting big and pushing the rest in on the flop, and fold everything else. I only play about the top 10% of hands so mostly I just sit there and fold. I bring along my iPod and even a book to fend off the boredom. Obviously the optimal thing would be to study the table and pick up on tendencies when I'm not involved in the hand, but watching these guys too much starts to really hurt your brain. If the choices are between reading a book and getting so bored that I start to "get creative" with weak hands, it's better to read the book.

(I almost despaired of getting English-language books in France when my first Amazon order never arrived, but I tried again and some goodies showed up in the mail yesterday: Word Freaks (Fatsis), My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist (Leyner), and Freedarko's Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac. I had been miserably slogging through a copy of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.)

After leaving the live game, sometimes I go for a run along the Promenade de Anglais and then cool off in the ocean for a few minutes. Floating around in the ocean is very relaxing. Usually I don't even bring a towel and jog soggily back home.

When I get back, I make myself a sandwich or some pasta. Then between around 7:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. I play several online sessions interspersed with short breaks. I like to have some kind of noise in the background while I play, sometimes music, sometimes podcasts. Rap would seem to be best suited to poker, but I've actually been on a country kick with Neil Young, Ryan Adams, etc. As for podcasts, This American Life and Savage Love are the gold standard. Bart Hanson's Deuce Plays is excellent for hardcore poker fans, and I just found out that Yale's introductory game theory course is available as a podcast. I'm also on the lookout for a good learn-French podcast. I had been listening to the Pimsleur brand tapes, but as the series goes on it acquires more and more of a creepy how-to-date-rape-in-French vibe ("Ask the woman if she would like some beer." ... "She says no. Ask her if she would like some wine." ... "She says no. Ask her if she would like to go back to your place." ...).

I've come up with a variety of break activities. Once a night I will do some kind of exercise like planks or pushups. I am a huge pushup sissy - three sets of 20 is proving to be a significant challenge. Sometimes I go for the solo dance party (Lady Gaga or, of course, MJ). Usually I eat another meal at some point before I go to bed.

I find it hard to go to sleep right after playing poker, so I usually read or watch a movie for awhile before going to bed. I usually pass out around 4:00.