Heather, Author at PokerPilgrims

Coping with the Challenges of Remote Work

April 14, 2020April 14, 2020 Heather Leave a comment

Paul and I have been working remotely for close to 15 years now. We love working from home and can’t wait until we can take our remote work on the road when we start our poker pilgrimage in just a couple of years. A couple of years ago we wrote about all of the things that we love about working from home, as well as some of the challenges that we encounter. Now that so many of us have abruptly transitioned to working from home, we thought that it would be helpful to revisit some of the challenges of remote work and share how we cope with them.

COVID-19 has also thrown in the extra double-twist for many of us of working from home while your kids (and your significant other) are all sharing the same space 24-7. I thank goodness that Paul and I are currently residing with a 16-year-old and a 20-year-old, who are generally self-sufficient. I feel for those of you trying to work alongside 6-year-olds and 10-year-olds. You deserve a medal.

5 Ways to Beat Poker Withdrawal

March 30, 2020March 29, 2020 Heather Leave a comment

This month, in one fell swoop, we lost our two favorite activities: live poker and travel. Fortunately for us, we had just finished our latest poker journey. COVID-19 restrictions came mere days after we returned from a trip to Florida in which we visited five new poker rooms (Room reviews to come. So far we have shared our thoughts on Silks). In fact, we were sitting in the Tampa airport waiting for our flight home when we learned of the first coronavirus victim in the state of Florida. We also may have ignored our better selves and played one last tournament in New Hampshire before that state closed its poker rooms. Happily, we’re now two weeks out from that tournament with no ill-effects. Unless you count poker withdrawal.

It didn’t take long for the withdrawal set in. We watched with a mixture of horror and relief as first Connecticut, then Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and finally Las Vegas shut down all live poker rooms. Horror, of course, because – NO POKER! And relief, because we would have struggled to make the right decision, was poker still an option. Hopefully, we would have done the smart thing and stayed home. I’m glad that we didn’t have to find out. As Paul says, can you imagine an activity more conducive to spreading disease than live poker? I kind of never want to touch a chip again.

The Best Way to Plan a Poker Vacation

February 10, 2020February 10, 2020 Heather Leave a comment

While we patiently await our poker pilgrimage, we try to explore new poker rooms and parts of the country whenever we can. Last winter we visited South Florida and Key West. This month we will be visiting the Tampa Bay area. And hopefully later this year we will have some time to check out the Philadelphia poker scene. We have perfected a system for identifying areas we would like to visit, researching them, and planning our poker vacation. So here we present the best way to plan a poker vacation. Read More

CardsChat Interview with Debi O’Neill

February 4, 2020February 4, 2020 Heather Leave a comment

CardsChat offers a variety of services to recreational poker players including news, resources, and a wonderfully friendly online forum. This week we had the pleasure of speaking with CardsChat’s long-time Forum Administrator Debi O’Neill. We interviewed Debi to learn more about the site’s offerings and about future directions for CardsChat.

Interview with Debi O’Neill of CardsChat

Heather: CardsChat has been around for about 15 years now, is that correct? Tells us a bit about the history of CardsChat? How was it conceived and by whom?

Debi: Yes, we celebrated our 15-year anniversary this past September! CardsChat was launched in 2004 by Nicholas Kisberg, it was right before the big poker boom when online poker was in its early stages. Players were looking for places to discuss poker and Nick wanted to provide them with a great site for that, where a friendly poker community could be formed.

How to Negotiate the Best Poker Chop

January 23, 2020January 22, 2020 Heather Leave a comment

After hours of grinding through a 230 person tournament, you find yourself at the final table with a huge stack. Only five other players remain. One of the middle stacks says “anybody want to chop?” What do you do? Do you flatly refuse (and risk looking like a jerk)? Say “sure” and let the pot be evenly divided despite your 2 to 1 chip advantage on the second stack and two other players sucking oxygen? Or do you find a better way? How do you negotiate the best poker chop?

I recently found myself in exactly this enviable position at the Playground Poker Club outside of Montreal. The experience led Paul and me into our four thousandth discussion about chopping poker tournaments. While there’s no single right answer, we have some rules of thumb for negotiating the best poker chop in various situations.

Author: Heather