Unemployed Need Plinko Money!

I feel like I have been incredibly busy for an unemployed lady.  I'm seriously exhausted and a bit under the weather.. which is not a good thing for an unemployed person without health insurance. I'm really trying to take care of myself so that I don't have to end up dropping cash on a doctor's visit and prescription.

It's been a crazy week.  On Tuesday, the 24th, my fellow unemployed gentlemen friend and I headed to a taping of The Price Is Right with two other lucky yellow shirts. The night before we were designing and printing shirts.. Why not?  That's what I used to do for a living. I went with "Unemployed Need Plinko Money".  They came out great. We arrived at the line at 5:45am. I am a huge fan of the show and this would be the 3rd time I've attended. Last time, was very successful. My best friend was one of the 1st 4 contestants and won a hot tub and a painting. I feel like I know the secret to get called... After almost missing the cut to be included in the audience, despite our early arrival.. we received our price tag name tags and numbers. I prepped our group with the knowledge of showing off super excitement and representing a character in order to get called when it came to interview time. It also helps if all of us share the excitement because we'll make for good TV as we cheer on our fellow yellow shirt while they are on stage. We did great in the interviews. I felt like 2 of the 4 of us had a great shot at getting called... and I was right. The 1st contestant called was a member of our group. It was so exciting watching each item come up in hopes this will be the one that will bring her on stage with the right bid... She makes it up winning a mini gas powered plane.. and is faced with the Range Game and a beautiful shiny red Jeep. I'm thrown off.  This Jeep was 21K a few days ago on the show and today that's the highest amount on the game... and we all know the game usually stops at the higher end of the 1st 3rd. Our confusion threw off our contestant.. she wasn't sure where to stop it and missed by about 200. The wheel wasn't friendly either. She was the 1st to spin and went over. Oh, well.. we had a great great time. It's an amazingly fun experience.

After the show we were completely exhausted and drained. Our original plan was to head to Vegas that night.  Once we finally arrived back at my apartment.. and realized my Jeep was not towed (thankfully!!).. we pretty much crashed.

Wednesday, however, we woke up... I played a little on Poker Stars.. and then we headed off to Vegas....

Another Day at the Office

Friday morning I woke up with the master plan to play in the 12pm $40 tournament at the Bike. I'm a little rushed in a way I'm not comfortable with.. I'm sharing my morning with someone as we have breakfast and get ready and both run out the door to our respective places that will hopefully lead our unemployed selves to some form of an income.

In perfect LA fashion, I am faced with break lights and my Jeep is brought to a crawl on the 5. This is not good.  I know there is late registration into the 1st level and that's great.. I have a window of at least 20 minutes.  Well, I am not even on the 710 yet and it's 12:10.  I'm yelling at other cars and not dealing well at all.  My adrenaline is flowing and my heart rate is up.  How am I going to run in and register and then pull up a seat at the tables like this?

As soon as I am seating cards and being dealt to me. There are 171 players in the tournament today.  I fold and get myself situated and take a few deep breathes and try to focus.. I made it.. now don't blow it. After all, you don't want to have gone through all that and driven here to just pay them $40... right? As soon as I am seated I scan the table and realize I am the only female and they are all staring at me. Slightly uncomfortable.  The first few pots I am in I play really well and unpredictably. My opponents don't know what to make of me or how to play against me.  They approach every pot with caution instead of aggression.  I like this a lot. Before I can build up my stack to a real comfortable level our table is broken and I am moved to table 2 seat 3.  My new table is talkative and aggressive. I know two of the players from other sessions. Things are not going well here.  My cards are terrible and I can't seem to gain any control with all the heavy raising.

I am dealt QQ and raise. I am called by one of the aggressors.  The flop comes A-K-3 rainbow.  I check and with some confusion my opponent checks back.  He expected me to bet the A. I technically would have raised pre-flop with an A.  The turn brings a blank and I throw out a semi-weak bet. He calls.  I check the river and he checks back. He shows a K and I muck my QQ. Lesson learned... I completely played the QQ wrong. I needed to bet that flop to feel out whether or not my opponent had the A and to represent the A at the same time.

I never really recovered as the blinds increased and I was out soon after. I left the Bike defeated and mad at myself. I am a very competitive person and, even more so, super competitive with myself. It's not so much about losing to the other players.. but the mistakes I allowed myself to make....

A Release

I’ve returned from a Vegas weekend. We decided to extend the weekend by 1 day. It was nice not having anywhere else to be. This was definitely a trip for celebrating and releasing. I found myself start to get a bit frustrated when I thought about losing my job. It never got to the point.. why me? I don’t question my abilities. I knew why my number came up and it didn’t have anything to do with my work.

I couldn’t help myself. I’m in Vegas, it’s the last birthday of my 20s and I was 2 days into unemployment. What can I do? I needed a cocktail.. and keep ‘em comin’. I used to like to have a drink or two when I sat down at a table.. I was new to live play and I need to calm the nerves. As I became more confident in my game, I felt like I took too many chances and became too chatty when I drank at the tables.. this soon became a leak in my game that I needed to fix. So that was the end of that.. which means no poker on Friday.. but celebrate we will.

Saturday was a day to play.. so I entered an $80 tournament at Planet Hollywood. Players were not good and unpredictable. I tried to be patient but the play was just so bad and luck just loves those bad players… so I was out in 2 hours. I moved to cash. Players were better-ish than the tournament.. I had my favorites for taking pots off of.. I made back my money from the tournament and an extra $50… but I decided to have a few cocktails.. I was just in the mood to drink and my table had a few fun guys.. soon I became very chatty.. I was holding back playing hands though (because I couldn’t shut up and pay attention to the play).. so I knew it was time to take my winnings and split before I started to gamble. Another rule for playing I have is, If I’m in need of blowing off some steam then I should leave the table.. and that’s exactly what I did..

Waking up on Sunday I realized how badly it’s going to hit me to wake up on Monday morning and not go into work.. It was beautiful out.. so why not stay another night? We went to the pool for a bit and walked over to the Luxor and decided I’d play in their 4pm $55 tournament with my winnings from Saturday. I know the starting chips are bad, the play is bad, and the overall structure is just terrible.. but whatever, I want to play and I’m freerolling. Now.. when I say the play is bad.. I mean this is seriously like playing against a few monkey’s you just taught Tiddlywinks and then sat them at a poker table. Due to the fact that they have a horrible poker “area roped off on the casino floor” they could only allow 20 players and 5 alternates. Well, I played my game and ended up chopping for 1st for $450. That totally worked for me.. I could definitely use that money towards April’s rent. That was the extent of my poker on the trip. I tried to play smart and sober and if that meant I only sat on those 2 occasions.. then fine. I’m not about to play if my head isn’t into it.

After returning back to LA.. I needed to get serious about getting my unemployment claim in to the system. I discovered this article in the LA Times from February 22nd. The article says, “You can apply on the phone, but those lines are so tied up these days that it would be easier to get through to a radio contest.” Now, I’m one of the “small percentage of laid off workers” who can’t apply online. I have to call because I worked in FL 18 months ago. I had no choice but to get my claim in online because it was the only way I could get myself set up in the system so they will at least call me to review my info. It’s definitely tough getting myself set up and I’m doing everything I can right now to work on freelance, sell handmade jewelry on Etsy, and play poker to get me through to the next month. So afraid my buffer will run out…

Hope everyone’s March is treating them well so far. It rained today but I still made it out for a nice walk and enjoyed the dark clouds hanging over the beautiful San Fernando Valley.

Cheers.