Two
days ago, on Monday 6th March, I tweeted (@Starch_Jarvis): ‘Holy sweet
Christ I ran so good in that session. I almost feel guilty.' It was one
of those beautiful two-hour spells where everything goes to plan – you
constantly hit hands, play brilliantly and always, always get there. In a
mix of $1/2 and $2/4 six-max cash I was up $2,300 in less time than it
takes to watch White Men Can’t Jump.
In the midst of these sessions - and afterwards when I’m going to sleep with a wry grin on my face - I often think, Why isn’t everyone doing this? Why isn’t everyone playing poker for a living? $2,300 is such a huge sum of money to be won in that short space of time. I’d hazard to say it’s substantially more than I was taking home per month from my old journalism job once taxes were deducted. I learned a long time ago, however, that if you get complacent or cocky then poker has a nasty habit of knocking you back down very quickly.
At 8pm on Tuesday 7th March, I’d lost all the previous day’s profits and was now operating at a -$1,050 loss. At that point I realised why the poker profession isn’t for most people. Daily swings like this used to really bother me. On my very first day as a ‘pro’, the Good Luck card from my girlfriend fresh on the desk, I dropped $1,200 – I think it was the most I’d ever lost in a day up to that point. Instantly the irrational side of your brain kicks in and wonders if quitting your steady job was a huge mistake, whether you’ll ever be able to win at poker again, whether you’ll ever be able to earn money again.
Losing cash has that effect on most people. No matter how much or how many times you have won in the past, a big loss hurts much more and somehow the brain finds a way to override the clarity of thought that knows if you continue to play better than your opponents the money will come back eventually. Instead, all you can see is that your online bankroll is much smaller than it used to be. Thankfully, with practise, your tolerance for such wins and losses grows considerably with the more experience you get.
Having been pro for about 18 months I’d still consider myself to be a bit of a rookie at this. I’ve only experienced one significant downswing and haven’t yet reached the level that I want to be at skill-wise. The one thing I’m especially happy with is my changed attitude to [poker] money. Daily losses used to rock my confidence and, conversely, I’d get too happy when I had big wins. Experience and training – Jared Tendler’s book The Mental Game of Poker is instrumental in this – have completely altered my mindset to these things.
A personal goal is to attempt to have the same demeanour to other people no matter whether I’ve been winning big or dropping tons. Not only does this make me more bearable to be around when it’s going badly, but I also think it’s pretty solid advice for anyone taking poker semi-seriously. You cannot get embroiled in the money swings at all. They’re just numbers on a screen. (Or clay discs in a casino for you live folk.) If I could offer one piece of metagame advice from my brief pro experience it would be to work on managing your relationship to money. When you aren’t emotionally invested in the game it helps you play much better and avoid tilt.
So things weren’t going so well at 8pm. I don’t think I’d ever bet-folded so many rivers in my life before. And I definitely hadn’t hit a set. However, the beautiful thing about poker is that it can all turn around so quickly. The epic comeback began with this hand...
***** Hand History for Game 2027410243 *****
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: MrStarch ( $2015.89 USD )
Seat 2: blinDDuke ( $498.01 USD )
Seat 3: callmebabe ( $1107.10 USD )
Seat 4: WillyBanaan ( $865.00 USD )
Seat 5: cevzy ( $1127.00 USD )
Seat 6: Najammq ( $1331.50 USD )
blinDDuke posts small blind [$5.00 USD].
callmebabe posts big blind [$10.00 USD].
Dealt to MrStarch [ Td Th ]
WillyBanaan folds
cevzy raises [$30.00 USD]
Najammq calls [$30.00 USD]
MrStarch raises [$110.00 USD]
blinDDuke folds
callmebabe folds
cevzy folds
Najammq raises [$265.00 USD]
MrStarch raises [$1905.89 USD]
Najammq calls [$1036.50 USD]
MrStarch shows [Td, Th ]
Najammq shows [Kc, Ac ]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Kd, Jc, Tc ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 6h ]
** Dealing River ** [ 6d ]
MrStarch wins $2705.00 USD from main pot
I think my play is definitely questionable here; T-T is certainly the very bottom of my value range for making this play. The reason why I went with the hand was that the villain had been getting run over by me a little on this table and others and I thought he’d be looking for good spots to play back. Also, to my detriment, I didn’t give him credit for being able to flat a monster in the cut-off purely with the intention of back-raising a squeeze. With hindsight, it’s a great play by him. Obviously I had a mini heart attack once I saw the flop – he with a pair+gutshot+flush draw and me with my set – but somehow I held up to win the $2,700 pot.
Soon after I played another big pot vs. a different opponent who most certainly didn’t cover himself in glory.
***** Hand History for Game 2027416686 *****
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: callmebabe ( $745.95 USD )
Seat 2: Najammq ( $939.07 USD )
Seat 3: MrStarch ( $753.65 USD )
Seat 4: kanapes ( $654.00 USD )
Seat 5: flagginfinger ( $1490.55 USD )
Najammq posts small blind [$3.00 USD].
MrStarch posts big blind [$6.00 USD].
Dealt to MrStarch [ 9c 9s ]
kanapes folds
flagginfinger raises [$18.00 USD]
callmebabe calls [$18.00 USD]
Najammq folds
MrStarch calls [$12.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9d, As, Jc ]
MrStarch checks
flagginfinger checks
callmebabe bets [$36.00 USD]
MrStarch raises [$108.00 USD]
flagginfinger folds
callmebabe calls [$72.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5s ]
MrStarch bets [$182.00 USD]
callmebabe raises [$619.95 USD]
MrStarch calls [$437.95 USD]
callmebabe shows [8c, Tc ]
MrStarch shows [9c, 9s ]
** Dealing River ** [ 4d ]
MrStarch wins $1509.90 USD from main pot
I think preflop and flop are quite standard plays by both. When deeper (we started at 125 big blinds effective or so here) you really need to start building a pot early with your big hands to have any hopes of stacking someone. Also, I really have nothing to fear on the flop. Given that my opponent just flatted a raise on the button, A-A and J-J won’t be in his range, yet many two pair and straight combos will be. I’m not a fan of his turn ship over my (nicely-sized, I feel) bet. Am I ever pure bluffing here? Does he get me to fold out J-9, which is perhaps the bottom of my check-raising range? I don’t think so. His best option is surely to just fold, but I’m not complaining.
After these hands, and a general spurt of running hot, I was back to where I started. Back to my +$2,300 from the day before. As it was 2am and I’d been playing on and off for 14 hours, I should have called it a day and gone to sleep. The games were just too good though and I had visions of a historic all-nighter where I emerge victorious with a new personal best score. So I made a coffee, took five minutes and sat back down. With the coffee still hot I logged off 20 minutes later after losing $1,500 by running Q-Q into A-A (I actually should have folded given the action) and losing K-K to 5-7 in a three-bet pot among other things. Despite clawing back $1,500 from my low point I couldn’t help feeling it was a missed opportunity. #sadface
Here’s the graph to show how it all unfolded:
Rather than do a traditional blog where I talk about how things are going in the wider picture I thought you may appreciate an insight into the regular ups and downs that a poker player experiences in a short space of time. It can be stressful sometimes and – unlike the glamorised image – it involves hard work and very long hours. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. See you at the tables.
In the midst of these sessions - and afterwards when I’m going to sleep with a wry grin on my face - I often think, Why isn’t everyone doing this? Why isn’t everyone playing poker for a living? $2,300 is such a huge sum of money to be won in that short space of time. I’d hazard to say it’s substantially more than I was taking home per month from my old journalism job once taxes were deducted. I learned a long time ago, however, that if you get complacent or cocky then poker has a nasty habit of knocking you back down very quickly.
At 8pm on Tuesday 7th March, I’d lost all the previous day’s profits and was now operating at a -$1,050 loss. At that point I realised why the poker profession isn’t for most people. Daily swings like this used to really bother me. On my very first day as a ‘pro’, the Good Luck card from my girlfriend fresh on the desk, I dropped $1,200 – I think it was the most I’d ever lost in a day up to that point. Instantly the irrational side of your brain kicks in and wonders if quitting your steady job was a huge mistake, whether you’ll ever be able to win at poker again, whether you’ll ever be able to earn money again.
Losing cash has that effect on most people. No matter how much or how many times you have won in the past, a big loss hurts much more and somehow the brain finds a way to override the clarity of thought that knows if you continue to play better than your opponents the money will come back eventually. Instead, all you can see is that your online bankroll is much smaller than it used to be. Thankfully, with practise, your tolerance for such wins and losses grows considerably with the more experience you get.
Having been pro for about 18 months I’d still consider myself to be a bit of a rookie at this. I’ve only experienced one significant downswing and haven’t yet reached the level that I want to be at skill-wise. The one thing I’m especially happy with is my changed attitude to [poker] money. Daily losses used to rock my confidence and, conversely, I’d get too happy when I had big wins. Experience and training – Jared Tendler’s book The Mental Game of Poker is instrumental in this – have completely altered my mindset to these things.
A personal goal is to attempt to have the same demeanour to other people no matter whether I’ve been winning big or dropping tons. Not only does this make me more bearable to be around when it’s going badly, but I also think it’s pretty solid advice for anyone taking poker semi-seriously. You cannot get embroiled in the money swings at all. They’re just numbers on a screen. (Or clay discs in a casino for you live folk.) If I could offer one piece of metagame advice from my brief pro experience it would be to work on managing your relationship to money. When you aren’t emotionally invested in the game it helps you play much better and avoid tilt.
So things weren’t going so well at 8pm. I don’t think I’d ever bet-folded so many rivers in my life before. And I definitely hadn’t hit a set. However, the beautiful thing about poker is that it can all turn around so quickly. The epic comeback began with this hand...
***** Hand History for Game 2027410243 *****
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: MrStarch ( $2015.89 USD )
Seat 2: blinDDuke ( $498.01 USD )
Seat 3: callmebabe ( $1107.10 USD )
Seat 4: WillyBanaan ( $865.00 USD )
Seat 5: cevzy ( $1127.00 USD )
Seat 6: Najammq ( $1331.50 USD )
blinDDuke posts small blind [$5.00 USD].
callmebabe posts big blind [$10.00 USD].
Dealt to MrStarch [ Td Th ]
WillyBanaan folds
cevzy raises [$30.00 USD]
Najammq calls [$30.00 USD]
MrStarch raises [$110.00 USD]
blinDDuke folds
callmebabe folds
cevzy folds
Najammq raises [$265.00 USD]
MrStarch raises [$1905.89 USD]
Najammq calls [$1036.50 USD]
MrStarch shows [Td, Th ]
Najammq shows [Kc, Ac ]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Kd, Jc, Tc ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 6h ]
** Dealing River ** [ 6d ]
MrStarch wins $2705.00 USD from main pot
I think my play is definitely questionable here; T-T is certainly the very bottom of my value range for making this play. The reason why I went with the hand was that the villain had been getting run over by me a little on this table and others and I thought he’d be looking for good spots to play back. Also, to my detriment, I didn’t give him credit for being able to flat a monster in the cut-off purely with the intention of back-raising a squeeze. With hindsight, it’s a great play by him. Obviously I had a mini heart attack once I saw the flop – he with a pair+gutshot+flush draw and me with my set – but somehow I held up to win the $2,700 pot.
Soon after I played another big pot vs. a different opponent who most certainly didn’t cover himself in glory.
***** Hand History for Game 2027416686 *****
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: callmebabe ( $745.95 USD )
Seat 2: Najammq ( $939.07 USD )
Seat 3: MrStarch ( $753.65 USD )
Seat 4: kanapes ( $654.00 USD )
Seat 5: flagginfinger ( $1490.55 USD )
Najammq posts small blind [$3.00 USD].
MrStarch posts big blind [$6.00 USD].
Dealt to MrStarch [ 9c 9s ]
kanapes folds
flagginfinger raises [$18.00 USD]
callmebabe calls [$18.00 USD]
Najammq folds
MrStarch calls [$12.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9d, As, Jc ]
MrStarch checks
flagginfinger checks
callmebabe bets [$36.00 USD]
MrStarch raises [$108.00 USD]
flagginfinger folds
callmebabe calls [$72.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5s ]
MrStarch bets [$182.00 USD]
callmebabe raises [$619.95 USD]
MrStarch calls [$437.95 USD]
callmebabe shows [8c, Tc ]
MrStarch shows [9c, 9s ]
** Dealing River ** [ 4d ]
MrStarch wins $1509.90 USD from main pot
I think preflop and flop are quite standard plays by both. When deeper (we started at 125 big blinds effective or so here) you really need to start building a pot early with your big hands to have any hopes of stacking someone. Also, I really have nothing to fear on the flop. Given that my opponent just flatted a raise on the button, A-A and J-J won’t be in his range, yet many two pair and straight combos will be. I’m not a fan of his turn ship over my (nicely-sized, I feel) bet. Am I ever pure bluffing here? Does he get me to fold out J-9, which is perhaps the bottom of my check-raising range? I don’t think so. His best option is surely to just fold, but I’m not complaining.
After these hands, and a general spurt of running hot, I was back to where I started. Back to my +$2,300 from the day before. As it was 2am and I’d been playing on and off for 14 hours, I should have called it a day and gone to sleep. The games were just too good though and I had visions of a historic all-nighter where I emerge victorious with a new personal best score. So I made a coffee, took five minutes and sat back down. With the coffee still hot I logged off 20 minutes later after losing $1,500 by running Q-Q into A-A (I actually should have folded given the action) and losing K-K to 5-7 in a three-bet pot among other things. Despite clawing back $1,500 from my low point I couldn’t help feeling it was a missed opportunity. #sadface
Here’s the graph to show how it all unfolded:
Rather than do a traditional blog where I talk about how things are going in the wider picture I thought you may appreciate an insight into the regular ups and downs that a poker player experiences in a short space of time. It can be stressful sometimes and – unlike the glamorised image – it involves hard work and very long hours. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. See you at the tables.
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