Arghhh! I think this current disastrous swing is poker karma for failing to show any sympathy whatsoever to James666 when he has been whining about his bad luck for the past four years.
To be fair, I probably deserve it. Even after this horrific start to the month I'm still only down $1k or so in EV over my poker life - which is now about 700k hands. If I can stay almost bang on EV for the rest of my poker career then I have to be happy about that.
Still, in the short-term it's been affecting me more than it should be. I've been getting quite depressed about poker as I lose more each day and I'm also starting to feel less and less confident - which is completely irrational given that I have gone through two similar swings within the past year and recovered within a few weeks on both occasions.
There's a number of things I'll be looking at over the next few days - more mentality work, training vids, hand reviews (all the dull stuff basically) - and then I'll make sure I hit 70k hands for the month and hopefully claw some $ back. It's weird, it's not even the money that annoys me when I lose at poker, I just hate 'failing' at something I am fairly good at.
I played my biggest hand ever this month too - and lost. The guy in the hand was a complete fish so I think my line is pretty fine but what does anyone else think?
Hand info:
| Date: | Friday, October 07, 09:50:05 ET 2011 |
| Type: | Cash Games |
| Game: | Hold'em NL |
| Table: | 40413926 |
| Blinds: | $5/10 |
Table info:
Seat 1: sobaaad ($1,484.49)
Seat 2: gier1 ($1,616.07)
Seat 3: cevzy ($1,000)
Seat 4: KazakhstanAA ($2,174.12)
Seat 5: james666 ($1,080)
Seat 6: MrStarch ($2,785.34)
Seat 2: gier1 ($1,616.07)
Seat 6: MrStarch ($2,785.34)
Dealt to MrStarch
River: (Pot: $4,599.46)
Showdown:
SHOWS KazakhstanAA
SHOWS MrStarch
KazakhstanAA wins the pot of $4,415.24
It seemed quite hard to put him on Q-4....
Funnily enough, I posted about this hand on Twitter when it happened and the great Neil Channing tweeted me back saying 'sorry to hear that. Switch the laptop off and get it back tomorrow. No steaming'. I know Neil a little bit from various interviews and work in the media (FWIW he's probably my favourite interview in the poker world & a great guy) but it's good to know that he has my back too :)
Besides poker - and thank God there is more besides poker! - all is good. I had a great holiday with Hattie on a small Greek island called Symi for a week which involved a ton of beaching, eating and drinking. Perfect. Then we came back and had four nights in a huge Devon cottage for her Dad's 70th birthday with all her family. I had my own Masterchef stress moment there cooking ten steaks to order on a massively annoying AGA cooker too!
I'll finish on a few pics to remind everyone that there is definitely more to life than poker!
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| The blog debut of Ms. Starch. |
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| Food highlight of the holiday: a whole sea bream baked in sea salt and then prepared for you at the table. |
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| About to eat said sea bream. Don't worry, the starch is just off-camera... |
Good luck at the tables or elsewhere everybody!
Sorry to hear about the bad run.
ReplyDeleteMy only advice is don't get caught up in trying to play a shit load of hands, when running bad it's often good to step away for a bit and concentrate purely on playing your 'A' game as opposed to a tonne of volume.
Also, booking winning days works wonders for the mindset If you book a win early but still have the urge to play watch a coaching video, go over HHs etc.......that way you're still improving your poker/working but don't risk putting yourself in a bad mood if you loose what you've won. glglgl
Very good advice actually mate. Cheers, and crush $5/$10 for me until I get back there.
ReplyDeleteExplains why you playing some .50/1 lately i spose... Wonga is bang on. 70k hands is a lot, and if you are a little out of kilter mentally, you may only make things worse. I'd say take 2 days off to do something that you enjoy. Gym swim sauna jacuzzi, followed by a full Swedish massage usually works for me :-) You'll sort it mate, of that i have no doubt.
ReplyDeletedownswings liek that suck... sometimes you need something to cheer yourself up: http://bilybob88.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteHehe it's good to see that you still keep tabs on him. I can imagine some Drago vs Balboa-type epic showdown happening between you two in the future.
ReplyDeleteAwesome quote from the blog about how he's not going to be pushed around any
longer. Because he has he nuts.
professional, bankroll management and not getting in dick wagging wars). Anyway one day I had had enough of my c-bets not getting through and the constant floats, so I went for a little retribution, and respect. I floated the flop out of position with a back door nut flush draw which I was going to smash if it arrived on the turn, and a gutshot to the idiot end of the straight. I had made up my mind I was going to win this pot but as it happened I backed into the nuts and Zack had 2nd nuts so I got paid hard. I am not telling the story because I got paid but because I stood up to him and showed him I'm not to be run over, and I think that he respected this, its not like I never could do this its just that I never wanted to start bluffing for thousands before. Zack
lol 'Drago vs Balboa-type epic showdown' who would be who in this match?
ReplyDeletei hadnt read it in months, but remember a comment on one of his posts that said: 'reading your blog is like eating rusty nails'
Ugh, run worse!
ReplyDelete