Gold Rush reminds me why I quit playing poker
In the ever continuing journey to find other games besides poker, I have landed on Moola (well, I actually landed there last summer but I have just recently starting playing again after a long hiatus). For those who are unfamiliar, it is a site where you can make money playing games (and doing a few other things as well). The site starts you off with $.01 and you play games at different levels and try to keep doubling up. When you get to $10, you can cash out.
There's 3 games, and the one I enjoy most of all is gold rush. It's a fun game and involves psychology and probability like poker. You start with 6 gold nuggets, representing 1,2,3,4,5, and 6 lbs. Your opponent gets the same, and the mine has 1-6 lb. nuggets as well. One by one, the nuggets are drawn from the mine and you bid with your opponent on each nugget. There's 6 rounds, winner of each gets the value of all 3 nuggets and you need 32 lbs to win the game. Here's an example from a game I played earlier.
Here the first nugget drawn is 2, so you probably don't want to come out of the gate with a 6. I chose to play 2 here, figuring my opponent may just use his 1 here and move onto the next round. He picked two also. That resulted in all 3 nuggets being put into the center, with the next drawn nugget. Here it was 5, and my opponent ended up beating me for it with a bid of 5 vs. 4. That gave him a 20-0 lead. Pretty devastaing, but I still had my 6 and 5.
I ended up winning the next few rounds and took a 21-20 lead with two rounds remaining. I had a 6 and 1 left, he had 6 and 4, and the mine had 6 and 1 as well. The mine drew a 1 and I used my 6. He used his 4, and I got my 32 points without having to play the last round which I would have lost. Had he used his 6 there, he would have won the tiebreaker.
This is where both math and psychology come in. I knew if I played the 6 and he played the 4 I would get to 32. Also, I "put him on a 4" since I thought he would save his 6 for the more valuable 6 nugget at the end. It's understandable that he would play the 4 there, because the 4 still beats my 1, and 6+1+1 only gets him to 28 and guarantees him a loss as my 6 would beat his 4 in the final round.
So that's how it works. Now onto the gambling degeneracy part. I had $7.15 in my account. I needed $10 to cash out, but was winning and really was aiming for more than that. I get up to the higher levels 6, (playing for $.64), and start losing a little. Eventually I lose a few dollars and try to win it back and move up a few more levels. I finally wipe away my bankroll on a level 9 game (risking $2.56). Same way I went busto in poker. I can't help it. The site does give you another penny to try again though.
So that served as a reminder of why I retired from playing poker and perhaps why I should stay retired. I can't imagine myself going back to being that degenerate. I'm certainly appreciative though of the skills I learned from playing, and the friends and acquaintances I made through the game. I'm glad I was able to make an overall profit, somewhere in the range of $1000, even though I went broke a few times and never really rose above micro stakes levels. But the desire to play is gone and I have much better ways of making money. I'm starting a job at a great company next week and I have another side gig that I enjoy. That's not to say I'm completely done for good; I'll likely play a little bit recreationally at some point, but the days of firing up 2-4 cash tables and trying to score 5bb/100 are over. I guess I'm grateful that $7.15 of free money gave me this revelation.
There's 3 games, and the one I enjoy most of all is gold rush. It's a fun game and involves psychology and probability like poker. You start with 6 gold nuggets, representing 1,2,3,4,5, and 6 lbs. Your opponent gets the same, and the mine has 1-6 lb. nuggets as well. One by one, the nuggets are drawn from the mine and you bid with your opponent on each nugget. There's 6 rounds, winner of each gets the value of all 3 nuggets and you need 32 lbs to win the game. Here's an example from a game I played earlier.
Here the first nugget drawn is 2, so you probably don't want to come out of the gate with a 6. I chose to play 2 here, figuring my opponent may just use his 1 here and move onto the next round. He picked two also. That resulted in all 3 nuggets being put into the center, with the next drawn nugget. Here it was 5, and my opponent ended up beating me for it with a bid of 5 vs. 4. That gave him a 20-0 lead. Pretty devastaing, but I still had my 6 and 5.
I ended up winning the next few rounds and took a 21-20 lead with two rounds remaining. I had a 6 and 1 left, he had 6 and 4, and the mine had 6 and 1 as well. The mine drew a 1 and I used my 6. He used his 4, and I got my 32 points without having to play the last round which I would have lost. Had he used his 6 there, he would have won the tiebreaker.
This is where both math and psychology come in. I knew if I played the 6 and he played the 4 I would get to 32. Also, I "put him on a 4" since I thought he would save his 6 for the more valuable 6 nugget at the end. It's understandable that he would play the 4 there, because the 4 still beats my 1, and 6+1+1 only gets him to 28 and guarantees him a loss as my 6 would beat his 4 in the final round.
So that's how it works. Now onto the gambling degeneracy part. I had $7.15 in my account. I needed $10 to cash out, but was winning and really was aiming for more than that. I get up to the higher levels 6, (playing for $.64), and start losing a little. Eventually I lose a few dollars and try to win it back and move up a few more levels. I finally wipe away my bankroll on a level 9 game (risking $2.56). Same way I went busto in poker. I can't help it. The site does give you another penny to try again though.
So that served as a reminder of why I retired from playing poker and perhaps why I should stay retired. I can't imagine myself going back to being that degenerate. I'm certainly appreciative though of the skills I learned from playing, and the friends and acquaintances I made through the game. I'm glad I was able to make an overall profit, somewhere in the range of $1000, even though I went broke a few times and never really rose above micro stakes levels. But the desire to play is gone and I have much better ways of making money. I'm starting a job at a great company next week and I have another side gig that I enjoy. That's not to say I'm completely done for good; I'll likely play a little bit recreationally at some point, but the days of firing up 2-4 cash tables and trying to score 5bb/100 are over. I guess I'm grateful that $7.15 of free money gave me this revelation.
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