Feeding the Need to Read

Had a nice comment today via Twitter from a reader (@tracyfm) who mentioned having added the Hard-Boiled Poker feed over at Google Reader. As it happens, I, too, have been spending some time this week with Google Reader adding a number of my favorite poker blogs.

I used to use Bloglines, logging in just about every day to see what the 200-plus folks I was following over there were writing about. At some point last year Bloglines began requiring users to enter one of those “captcha”-type codes in order to log in, something I’ll admit I found a bit tedious to do. I suppose there were good reasons for the added security, but the extra keystrokes actually might’ve kept me from logging in as often, as lazy as that sounds.

Then in the fall came news that Bloglines was going to go offline completely, at which point I stopped visiting the site. I believe Bloglines was bought by someone and saved, but I’ve moved on to Google Reader, where, like I say, I’m now busily adding all the blogs I have listed over on my Blogroll page.

All of which is to say that over the last couple of months or so, my reading of blogs had fallen off a bit, which is not something I’m so happy about.

I’ve always believed that writers need to be readers, too. If you want to write a decent blog (about anything), it’s worth your while to read others’ blogs on a regular basis, both to see what sorts of conversations are going on as well as to learn what makes a good blog post and what doesn’t.

You’ll discover some blogs are better than others, and thus more useful to you as a blogger than others. But they all help give you insight on what people are saying about a given topic, always of use if you decide yourself to share some observations or opinions about it.

I suppose what I’m saying relates in a way to the subject of my last post where I was thinking out loud about trying to study poker more in addition to my playing. Feeling as though I am in a bit of rut at the tables, I think I can stand to benefit from stepping away and spending some time studying strategy (via videos, I’m primarily thinking) before returning.

Similarly, I have always believed that reading others’ poker blogs has (for me) been a kind of “study” that has helped me write my own. Indeed, before I wrote my first post here I was already reading folks like Iggy (our erstwhile “Blogfather”) and Dr. Pauly and a number of others, folks from whom I got the idea that writing my own blog might be something fun to try.

Keeping up with others’ blogs also often helps you find still more good ones to follow. (Recall Iggy’s legendary “uber-posts” that would send us all over the intertubes for various pokery goodness?)

I know my current Blogroll includes a lot of the good ones, but there are still more out there I’m undoubtedly missing. So if you have some recommendations, send ’em along. ’Cos I’m always looking for another good read.

The Urge to Keep Writing, Continued

Had a lot of good comments on that post from a couple of days ago, titled “The Urge to Keep Writing.” Some nice words, too, for which I thank the commentors.

Since not everyone might’ve seen the comments -- and since this is, in fact, one of those “milestone” posts (today’s is the 1,200th) that tend to inspire the same kind of self-reflection I was engaging in on Tuesday -- I thought I’d use today’s post to share some of what was said in response to that one.

The post was mainly me wondering aloud about the place and/or relevance of poker blogs these days. For a variety of reasons, it seems fewer are writing them and fewer are reading them. And so I found myself thinking that morning about Hard-Boiled Poker and my desire to keep posting, despite these contrary trends.

In the post I made a reference to the “five minutes” out of each day I estimated it took folks to read my daily missives, and speculating whether or not these days that might be too much to ask. F-Train noted how in today’s media-saturated world the cut-off seems to be around three minutes. Thus, when confronted with a “wall of text” such as will happen sometimes when someone lands at Hard-Boiled Poker, some might quickly click elsewhere rather than commit.

F-Train concluded by agreeing that blogs still have a place, even if they aren’t as central to our conversations about poker as they might’ve been a few years back. NT then commented that these other, competing forms of communication or “social media” such as Facebook and Twitter will probably also eventually fade from prominence, presumably to be replaced by something else.

Hoyazo chimed in, building on a point that F-Train had raised regarding the fact that after several years of writing about poker, it has become harder for everyone to find something new about which to write. Thus, says Hoyazo, the move by many away from blogs and over to Twitter is partly related to the fact that folks simply have less to say nowadays than they might have in the past.

Luke in his comment picked up on a sentence in my post where I mentioned being much more “cognizant of having an audience” today than I was when I first started the blog long ago. He smartly adds that we all have an audience -- always -- whether we recognize that fact or not.

Finally, Drizztdj pointed out how time constraints keep him from blogging as much as he’d like, something I think most of us who keep blogs can appreciate.

As I said on Tuesday, I do remain inspired to continue posting here regularly. I’ll definitely keep all of these thoughts and ideas in mind, though, as I move forward.

While I write for many reasons, I probably wouldn’t keep at this if I didn’t believe I was communicating in a meaningful way with others. In other words, it’s important to me that whatever it is I’m doing here represents a worthwhile contribution to our many conversations about poker. And not just a bunch of “walls of text” standing as barriers between me and you!

Thanks again for the feedback, folks. And thanks also, again, to everyone else for reading.

The Urge to Keep Writing

I have this obviously malfunctioning mechanical pencil sitting here next to the computer. There’s a picture of me trying to use it -- again -- even though it doesn’t work properly.

It’s one of those throw-away, cheap plastic ones that comes with a few pieces of lead which once you get through you’re meant to toss the sucker in the garbage. That is to say, it isn’t designed to be used for very long, as it doesn’t really accommodate adding more lead the way the slightly more expensive ones do.

When I shake the pencil I can hear a couple of pieces of lead remain, and so am reluctant to get rid of it. But there’s definitely something wrong with it. Whenever I grab the thing to jot down a note, it only takes a few strokes for the lead to disappear mischievously back into the plastic tube. Notice up above how I couldn’t even make it through the last word of my short note.

I click the top a few times and begin anew, but if I press onto the paper with any force at all the piece of lead gets pushed back in once more. Still, I keep using the stupid thing, usually cursing a couple or five times before I get through whatever it is I was jotting down.

The note I was taking related to an idea I had for today’s post -- something about the blog itself. Didn’t have anything too definite in mind, but rather just wanted to ask for some feedback about what readers think about blogs such as this one and their current place in the larger scheme of things.

I’ve remarked before here how when I began the blog more than four years ago, there seemed to be hundreds of folks out there writing about poker on a regular basis, covering an amazingly wide spectrum of styles and abilities -- both writing-wise and poker-wise. But the rise of Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of interacting-slash-communication over the last couple of years has clearly edged blogs over into a more specialized location of this here virtual community we got goin’.

Such an observation was already being made by many over a year ago -- perhaps even earlier than that. Not just about poker blogs, but blogs, generally speaking. Most directly tied the so-called “decline of blogs” to the rise of other forms of “social media” such as the quick-hitting Twitter or other, non-verbal types of communication (e.g., fast-streaming audio and video, images, even games) with which those of us who use the internet on a regular basis are now very familiar.

Just think for a moment how you would spend an hour “surfing” on the internet in 2006 and compare it to what you do during that same hour today. How much of that time is spent reading articles (or blog posts) of more than 500 words today? How much in 2006?

When I began Hard-Boiled Poker, I did so because I enjoy poker and writing, and thought it would be fun to combine those two pursuits in a poker blog. I posted regularly -- even early on, when I wasn’t sure anyone at all was reading -- for no other reason than because it was fun to do. Over time I did attract a few readers, then a few more, then eventually found myself having joined what I experienced as an especially cool community of poker-lovin’ writers and readers.

My goal at first was to try to post every other day, which I essentially did for the first year-and-a-half of keeping the blog. I finally got wise to how folks read a lot more during the week than on Saturdays and Sundays, and so starting in January 2008 I decided to begin posting every weekday. This I’ve somehow managed to do without fail for what is now almost three years, even sometimes posting more than just weekdays, but adding posts on weekends, too (such as when I’m covering a live event).

As I sat here this morning fighting with that damned pencil once again, I recognized that there’s something maybe a little stubborn about posting with such regularity. I continue to get lots of hits, and I know from the feedback I receive (both in comments and via other means) that folks are reading. Even so, I can’t help but think I could perhaps change the way I am contributing to our ongoing conversations about poker.

Not saying I’m planning any big change right away, but just wondering what others might think. I continue to enjoy keeping the blog, and only rarely do I experience writing my weekday post as something arduous. Sometimes I have other writing assignments or responsibilities that make it harder to keep to my schedule -- and occasionally, like today, force me to post a little later in the day than I would otherwise. (Included among those other tasks is the writing of a second novel, to which I’m increasingly wanting to devote more time, too.)

While I get a lot of personal satisfaction out of writing my posts here, I’m also now very cognizant of having an audience -- much more so than when I began the blog -- and so try with every post to provide something of value to the reader. It is my hope with every post that the reader who makes it all of the way to the end has gotten something from doing so... that is, feels the five minutes or so was time well spent.

But as I mentioned above, I sense it becoming more difficult these days to tear many away from Facebook or Twitter or other places for those five minutes. So by writing another post here today, am I being inflexible by doggedly sticking to the same routine? Like with the pencil? Or like with my poker playing, where I also tend to stay with the familiar, perhaps to my detriment.

F-Train wrote a thoughtful piece at the end of last week titled “The Decline of Poker Writing” in which he addressed a few different issues regarding the current state of “poker media” and the availability (and quality) of jobs within that small world. I may be addressing a related issue here when I suggest that the decline in poker writing (in the form of blogs) is related also to a decline in poker reading -- speaking quantitatively, that is.

If any of these musings inspired some thoughts of your own, do share ’em. Thanks once again to those who took the five minutes and made it to the end of the post. And once again, I sincerely hope it was worth it.

What’s Cooking

Vera Valmore and I watched a movie here at home on Saturday -- Julie & Julia (2009). That was the one that crosscut between the true stories of Julia Child co-authoring her groundbreaking Mastering the Art of French Cooking and Julie Powell cooking all 524 recipes in Child’s book in one year and writing a blog about it.

I know... doesn’t sound very “hard-boiled” at all. Except for the occasional egg. And yeah, Vera suggested it. (She doesn’t know it yet, but we’re next watching This Gun for Hire with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.)

But as it happened I did enjoy the film, which did a neat job highlighting the parallels between the two women’s stories, both of which are ultimately about each becoming writers.

Actually, I was probably predisposed to enjoy Julie & Julia for a number of reasons. For one, I do like to cook, though haven’t any particular skills. I can follow a recipe, though, as long as it isn’t too complicated, such as I did this weekend when making gazpacho (Joy of Cooking, page 99).

By the way, when making gazpacho the key is always to use fresh ingredients. Vera and I hit the farmer’s market on Saturday morning, where I picked up most of what I needed. Also, take your time and chop everything up into the smallest bits possible, but don’t mince/puree stuff. Keep it all recognizable. Oh and someone somewhere taught me once how to peel tomatoes: boil some water, cut a little “x” at the base of the tomato (opposite the stem), throw it in for a minute, then dunk the tomato in bowl of ice water. Skins fall right off.

Another reason why I was ready to enjoy the film had to do with the story of Child and her husband living in France. Vera and I once had the opportunity to live a year in France (in Lille). In fact, that’s where I actually had the time to write the bulk of my first novel, Same Difference. So I’m always interested in stories of Americans living and working there and having meaningful experiences while doing so.

Finally, I had heard the story of “The Julie/Julia Project” -- that is, the blog written by Julie Powell which you can still read over at Salon -- and was curious about this whole blog-becomes-a-book-becomes-a-movie thing.

That’s probably the part of the film that I found most interesting. For some, there probably isn’t a lot of drama to be associated with starting a blog, starting to realize one has some readers, and then having the sucker evolve from a diversion to a pastime to a meaningful hobby to... well... an identity-shaping life-changer.

I wonder about blogs these days. They’ve definitely faded a bit from prominence over the last few years, with Facebook, Twitter, and other “social media” options having become preferred means for many to communicate their thoughts, their opinions, their... well... “identities.”

I stubbornly remain attached to the blog, however. And to the idea of taking a bit of time with one’s communications. Like with the gazpacho... or poker... patience usually pays. Not always monetarily, of course. But in ways that can be as nourishing (or more so).

Have another big writing project in the works -- more fiction. Another mystery, like Same Difference. And also like with the first novel, there is no poker in the plot. (Not at present, anyway.) Have the recipe and most of the ingredients all laid out and ready. Just need to get in there and starting cooking.

I’ll keep stopping in over here as well, though, to continue to serve a variety of poker-related dishes. Have moved back over in to pot-limit Omaha a bunch here lately, and will probably share some of those ups and downs here soon. If I don’t get an upset stomach, that is.

Another Round, and a Roundtable

Another all-nighter for yr humble insomniac. In fact, the tourney I’m covering -- which started yesterday afternoon -- is still going as I type.

Not running so good, am I. Indeed, truth be told, I’m mostly just crawling.

Brock “t soprano” Parker, winner of two bracelets at last summer’s World Series of Poker, is trying to claim a little SCOOP bling here in Event No. 12-High, the $2,600 No-Limit Hold’em (with Knockout Bounties).

Parker is currently the short stack with three players left, though that ain’t botherin’ him. As evidenced by this recent chatbox exchange with Team PokerStars Pro Maridu Mayrinck:

Maridu [Team Pro]: just out of curiosity what time is it for each of you guys?
t soprano: clobberin time
Maridu [Team Pro]: lol

All of which means I’ve got a lot else to write here this morning. But let me take the opportunity to point everyone to the first installment of my two-part “WSOP Bloggers Roundtable” over on Betfair Poker.

I think I’ve mentioned this here once or twice before. I invited 12 different poker bloggers, all of whom have covered the World Series of Poker over the last few years, each to answer six questions about the upcoming WSOP and their own experiences covering it. The first six-handed roundtable went up this morning, featuring F-Train, Brad “Otis” Willis, Benjo, Michele Lewis, Dr. Pauly, and Jason “Spaceman” Kirk. The second part will appear next Friday.

Over on Twitter this a.m., the PokerGrump likened my organizational skills to Tom Sawyer’s sneaky efforts to get his pals to whitewash that fence at the beginning of Twain’s novel -- i.e., get others to write my column for me. Hey, I’m not exactly denying it, but really, it’s not every day a person gets to whitewash a fence, is it?

Nor is it everyday one gets to assemble so many excellent pokery anecdotes and insights in one place, so go check out “WSOP Bloggers Roundtable, Part 1” -- and stay tuned for Part 2.

Back to the tourney for me. If my weary brain is any indication, it has been “clobberin time” for several days now.

But I’m off the canvas! I’m not out yet! Looks like Parker just went out in third. Let’s do this!

Flippin’ Sweet

Haven’t been playing too much poker here over the last few days. Too much going on, I’m afraid. I did, however, take advantage of the latest PokerStars bonus to come around, this one associated with the upcoming World Series of Poker.

A couple of months ago I wrote about how pleasantly surprised I was to discover how simple it was for me to use eChecks to deposit over at PokerStars. Since Neteller went away (for us Yanks), I had basically stopped even paying attention whenever online poker sites advertised promotions for deposit bonuses. I knew technically I could still deposit money if I wanted to, but just didn’t want to go through the hassle of sending a paper check and/or going through other hoops to do so.

But in February, PokerStars had its “25 Billion Bash” promo and I managed to set up the eCheck option for myself. Ran into a little bit of difficulty then because there’s a limit on how much one can deposit the first time around, but with that now behind me I was able to go ahead and take full advantage of this new promotion.

This one is a 20% reload bonus up to $120. So if you deposit $600 (like I did), then earn the requisite VPPs (or base FPPs) -- which in this case is 2,400 -- you get yr free moneys. You also have six months to clear the bonus, which’ll be no trouble for me. Even though I’m not playing all that much, I imagine it’ll only take me a month or two to get there.

If you’re reading this today and haven’t gone for the Stars bonus yet, there’s still time -- it lasts until 23:59 Eastern time tomorrow (April 30). The promo code is “09series.”

I’m remembering when I mentioned that Stars promo a couple of months ago I discussed it after the end of the promotion period, thus prompting our favorite reader, “anonymous,” to chime in with a Napoleon Dynamite-like comment about my failure to consider others might have wanted to hear about the promo before it expired. So here’s hopin’ I’ve afforded everyone adequate lead time on this one.

Why did I decide to write about the promo sooner this time? Why do I do what I do? Because I feel like it. GOSH!

Actually, I got a kick out of that comment, but it does bring to mind the recent efforts by a blogger who calls himself the “Quality Desktop Pundit” to offer a critique of some poker blogs. Some readers of this blog might have followed how that went, and I’m not going to rehearse it all again here. To summarize: the QDP made a not-so-quality generalization about a particular poker blogger -- one who happens to write one of the better, more consistently interesting poker blogs around, I’d say -- thereby drawing the ire of many of her longtime readers.

The tête-à-tête has settled down, I think, but not before the QDP suggested that “the variety of topics at her blog could be increased” and asked if she “could... please do more posts about” other topics than the ones about which she writes. A little bit like when someone complained over on the Poker Grump’s blog about the “Guess the Casino” posts. The Grump had a good reply to that complaint, as I recall.

We’ve been over all of this before, I think. I read a ton of blogs daily, and it has never once occurred to me to suggest to someone writing a personal blog that he or she should write about something other than what he or she chooses to write about.

If we were talking about a magazine or newspaper to which you subscribed -- i.e., which you paid for with yr own cabbage -- well, then, I think it is valid to complain if the content ain’t what you thought you paid for. But personal blogs? Criticism is fine, but editorial suggestions? Buncha whistling in the dark, I’d say.

Meanwhile, go get in on that Stars promotion, why dontcha? And then go work on your skills. You’ll never get a date without skills. You know, nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills....