Writey Writey

Joining the ranks of Speaker, Mean Gene, and Gracie, I'm going to throw my hat into the NaNoWriMo ring this year. I've made the same declaration the last two years and fizzled out, barely off the launch pad, but hopefully things will be different this year. I've got a little more spare time on my hands this year and fewer excuses, especially since any oversight at the day job has completely disappeared, so I'm free to bang away at the keyboard while at work, since my entire job entails sitting there all day, banging away at the keyboard.

I'd like to say I was planning on writing the Great American Novel, but I'm probably going to be much more crass and commercial. I've had half a dozen plots for detective novels rolling around in my head the last few years, so I'll probably try to buckle down and grind out one of those. From a strictly commercial sense, I'm not sure it's +EV for an unpublished author to write anything these days, but the best bet for me to make any bucks in the writing business would probably lie in some genre-tastic area such as detective novels, instead of writing more literary, high-falutin' stuff like I did in grad school.

Things are chugging along on the poker front. I managed to get in 60 or so SnGs yesterday at Full Tilt, and was a good monkey and stuck to the $60s. That's pretty crazy volume for me and the most poker I've put in at the tables in a very, very long time. Nothing too horribly exciting and I was staring a largely break-even day in the face (I think I was up +$50 or so) when I had a nice run in my last four of the day, finishing ahead +$300 for the day. Not very sexy in many ways but I'm actually sort of enjoying the grinding at the moment, and while there's not the massive upside and earning potential of playing 30/60 or 10/20 NL, I can definitely see how people grind out nice, steady profits doing the SnG thing.

I can also see how it'd be easy to get pretty burned out, too, sitting there, playing SnG after SnG after SnG. I was "telecommuting" yesterday so I'd play a bunch, do a little work, play a bunch, go paint some in the living room, play a bunch, do a little work, rinse, lather, repeat.

Had an interesting bubble decision in a situation I hadn't yet encountered. Four players left and Dumby McDumbs had gotten really short (like 1 BB short), won a few hands, and kept shoving all-in with any two after that point, despite not having to do so. He ran his stack up, back down, up, back down, etc. Literally was shoving every single hand with any two cards, and had done that for the last 15 hands or so. I've been chilling out, waiting for someone to bust before tangling with Dumby. It was one of those wacky situations where it somehow managed to stay four handed, though, which brings us to the following situation, with blinds of 250/500:

Random #1: 1,500
Me: 4,000
Dumby McDumbs: 4,500
Random #2: 4,000

Random #2 posts his BB, Dumby the small blind. Random #1 folds and I look down to find QQ. I shove, Dumny insta-calls with 85o, Random #2 folds, and the poker gods quickly put me out of my misery when Dumby flops a straight and knocks me out.

I'm not really questioning my shove, but it does raise the question of what proper play is in that spot, when the chip leader has lost their gourd/is having "fun"/"is playing a rush" and is guaranteed to shove all-in every hand with any two. If you could somehow absolutely know that Dumby will continue to shove with any two, every single handfor the remainder of the tournament, do you fold your queens and waiting for him to bust/bust someone out?