Left Casino Early Tonight

Logged a small +$41 USD win in $3-$6 Hold'Em. The usual degenerates were there at the Village Club, lots of gambling going on in the games, lots of players on tilt. I saw Jeff on his third or forth buy-in in the $1-$3 No-Limit HE game, and I felt fortunate with my little win, so I picked up at about 9:15pm. Ace came by, wearing a shirt and slacks for the first time I've ever known him, and asked if I was out. I told him yes. He asked if I won, I said "$41". In kind, he told me he cashed out over a hundred that morning. But when I told him I cashed +$56 and +$57 last weekend, he told me how he'd stopped playing for a week, because he has a -$180 loss and another hundred+ loss. He told me his system of finding somewhere else to play if he lost twice in a row in the same room. He started telling me about some AKs and AJs hands he lost in the morning, and how it convinced him to cash out. I don't really encourage people when they tell me about their bad beats. I don't respond to these stories. As a rule. Especially when they're about low-limit games. He took the hint, and walked off.

Someone asked me today if I played poker for the excitement of winning. Or rather he assumed I played for that reason. I told him I play because I have nothing else better to do. I had to convince him of this. I guess most people associate chronic gambling with chronic losing. Poker is the only table game where this is not necessarily true. I might be a burn-out though. I explained to him there were a few players that just walk around, passing on games, with a vaguely unhappy look on their faces.