Results oriented thinking 101

So I’ve been pretty light on the updates of late, I suppose due to my lack of play. I continue to reset my daily goals for games played and continue to fall behind each day. Truthfully I should be playing everyday, but now and then I find myself taking “days off” for no good reason. I realize I’ve wrote about this lack of motivation infinity times but since I still suffer from it, I need to fix it.

Truth be told, the increased motivation I seek will probably never see the light of day since I’ve suffered from it pretty much my entire conscious life.

I refrained from playing all weekend and only started late Monday night with 2 sets of 8. I fucking smoked those two sets cashing 11/16 with only one third place finish for a sickening profit of $1040. After entering the profit into my daily log, and after cleaning up the ensuing mess in my pants, I considered the pros and cons for playing an additional set. Obviously I was playing well, and obviously I like money, so in theory I should play another. But I had to consider the possibility of me losing. Did the pain that I would endure by losing outweigh the potential pleasure I would receive from winning? Since I was already up $1k, which is the highest daily total since March, the utility I would gain from winning an additional set is much diminished. You know, like receiving your third blow job of the day, it just isn’t as good. My expected win in a set of 8 is about $72. The chance of losing a set is roughly 25%.

In hindsight, after looking at these numbers it becomes obvious to me that I should have quit. But for some reason I pushed myself to play that third set. I really had no true desire to play another set, but something told me to continue playing. Perhaps it was the plethora of posts I’ve created about motivation sinking in somehow. I loaded up 8 more, only to cash in 2 of 8, for a net loss of $213.5. FUCKING EH!

There goes my $1k profit for the day.

There goes the only daily four figure profit since March.

In the end, does it matter at all? In the long run probably not, but in the short run (ie the upcoming week) it probably will affect me somehow. Somehow it will creep into my psyche and make me play worse.

Obviously all this results oriented thinking is completely inefficient and just plain stupid for a so-called “professional”. And obviously it is something I’m still ironing out. But I think even though I ended up losing that third set, I think it was a +EV move to continue playing, and am at least glad I had the temporary balls to do so.