What are your hobbies?

[G&T]

Is sex a hobby?

 

Only if it's costing you a lot of money.

[JPN366]

Only if it's costing you a lot of money.

 

Sex is never free.

[Controlled Chaos]

I have two daughters 2 years old and younger. I'm not allowed to have a hobby right now.

 

If I DID have time for hobbies, it would be pretty much anything electronics/computers and video games. Unfortunately, my dad wasnt much of a "handy man", so I never really learned much about cars, house maintenance, or gardening/backyard care.

In the same boat. I have a house, 2 cars, a wife, 2 daughters(4 & 2) and one more kid on the way. That pretty much monopolizes my free time. Responsibility creeps up on you and then strangles you!!!! Watching the kids grow up is a pretty cool hobby though.

 

I love to golf....been out only once in the last 2 years and that was for my friends bach party last year. The problem is my friends are all in the same boat. So it's hard to find time when a few guys can all get free on a weekend. We can usually all get free at night, so we get together usually once a month, go to a bar and watch the games. Play some Golden tee, since we never get out on a real course.

 

Watching the Sox, Bears and Hawks are my hobbies. Even if I can't get to the games, I can watch them, read about them, come on here and write about em.

[Rex Kickass]

Travel. Love to read but I don't have nearly the voracious appetite as I did a couple years ago. I used to read a book a week, easy. I also love bicycling, hiking, listening to music, creating really awesome names for bands.

[SouthsideDon48]

I play lots of poker. I never play online, though, I only play live, so I'm pretty much old-school. I also only play tournaments.

 

I've gotten into poker when my friends and I watched Chris Moneymaker win the WSOP Main Event in 2003. I had two groups of friends I played poker with, so I played twice as much. But I was the only one that took poker seriously and always tried to learn more and more from it.

 

Got my ass kicked in my first casino experience in Vegas in 2006 at Flamingo and Paris, the highest place I finished was 11th place in a crappy tournament at Imperial Palace.

 

After I got back from Vegas, I found an underground game in the back room of a pizza place in Midlothian that had one $125 tournament a month. I was the youngest person there playing against a bunch of middle-aged people. The first time I played there, I finished 4th and won $200. Which I was happy about since I won money back. Two months later I finished 2nd for $500, and even flopped Quad Aces in one hand. Also finished 4th again 2 months later for another $200.

 

Went to Vegas again in December 2007 and played more poker. This time I played at Sahara and Paris and just couldn't get in a roll. Then I played at Planet Hollywood and finished in 7th for my first Vegas cash of $160. I went back to Planet Hollywood again for the promotional tournament they had at the time where Michael "the Grinder" Mizrachi was the sponsored "house pro" who played in the tournament against everyone. I raped my table very good at first, but I was still learning and I admit, I started feeling invincible which led to me making stupid plays. I ended up getting eliminated in 31st place, which sucked cause they combined the tables after my elimination and moved Michael "the Grinder" Mizrachi to my vacated seat, which was still warm from me sitting on it. I stayed and waited until the next break and spoke to Mizrachi, he was a very nice guy, he was also there with another poker player who had no movement of his arms and had to play poker with his feet and a triangle wooden doorjam to look at his cards. Pretty cool. (Note: Michael Mizrachi is in this year's November 9 for the WSOP Main Event, I'm rooting for him)

 

For 2008 to now, I pretty much only played in free poker tournaments run by bar leagues once or twice a week every week. I made the decision to play free tournaments in bars to gain more experience and to get better at a low cost, and I also wanted to focus more on school without having to worry about losing money playing in poker tournaments.

 

In 2010, I noticed I was consistently beating all my friends, and I was winning money at a decent clip in tournaments and sit-n-goes at Chicago Charitable Games, so when the summer semester ended I decided to treat myself to a $200 buy-in tournament at Horseshoe Hammond and I ended up finishing 4th place out of 83 people and won $1,380, which has been my biggest cash so far and longest poker session of 7 hours and 15 minutes.

 

Now I'm planning on using a portion of my winnings from my 4th place finish to enter the $350 event #13 at the WSOP-Circuit event in October at Horseshoe Hammond. Hopefully I'll do good.

 

I still play free tournaments in bars, I play them to stay sharp and avoid going rusty and practice new tactics.

 

I usually avoid charity tournaments unless they're run by Chicago Charitable Games. If they're charity tournaments played by people involved with the charity, then I avoid them at all costs, because it really sucks to play poker against people that doesn't know how to play poker and shouldn't even be playing in a poker tournament. I know it's kind of scummy of me to say this, but I'm the type of person that would rather take my money and play in a legit casino-run tournament against legit players rather than spend my money to play a poorly-run charity tournament against people who never play poker. To be honest, I never care about the charity, I only care about the poker.

 

Also, I'm not a gambler, I'm a gamer. I love playing poker for free against capable players and it's all about the game to me. Poker tournaments has a survival game element that I love. I can't play cash games because I'm not a gambler and the slow pace of cash games bore me to death.

 

This was pretty much my poker biography :-p. I've always wondered if I was the only serious poker player here on Soxtalk. Anyone else play poker?