Groove is in the house

I haven't really had consistent, stable access to a computer for a few weeks now, which has severely limited the amount I've been able to play. I have had days where I was able to play, but because I hadn't kept a consistent schedule, it was difficult to start up, so I just didn't.

For me, its all about getting into a groove.

Last year around this time I came to the conclusion that I needed to play more. A year later and I'm still the captain of the good ship lazy. However, in that time last year, I made some significant strides with increasing my daily play time and maintaining it. And for a few months, I was putting in some solid hours, and in turn, seeing some nice results. Everything was going to plan.

Then I hit a sickening downswing, lost a ton of cash and my mind, and shriveled back into minimal, risk-averse play. Losing can seriously fuck with your long term goals.

However, the key point here that I need to keep conscious is the fact that when I actually did get into a groove where I played consistent hours everyday, I made more. This is the most obvious correlation of all time, but it still evades me all the time.

To get back into working, I just need to get into a groove. Any groove will do. I'll start with a small goal, simply playing every day. Thats it, just making sure I log on to internet poker at least once a day for the next week. Thats my goal. Once that happens, I can start to concentrate on the length of sessions. Currently I can't play more than 3 hours without my ADD setting in, but I know I'm capable of 5+ hour sessions. Additionally I need to get multiple sessions in a day, one during the afternoon and one late at night. This strategy has worked for me before and it just takes a little focus to achieve.

I'll also hopefully be posting more as I'll have more poker on the brain this week. So heres to the rejuvenation of this blog and my bankroll. They both have been sorely neglected in the past 2 months.

Random black act of violence

Crazy weekend for me. Friday, played poker with some friends, won both donkaments - lol. Saturday morning I entered into a 3 on 3 basketball tournament in town that lasted all afternoon. The night ended with a drive down to Niagara Falls to celebrate a friends bachelor party. So fuckin tired.

I was excited to play the basketball tournament even though I've never been the best baller around but I usually am at least competitive. I was definitely a bit rusty but I feel that after the third game I finally got some confidence back and was semi-helpful to my team. They put us in the mens age 19-29 height 6'1+ bracket because we happened to have 1 person over 6'1 on our team. Even still the competition was a lot weaker than I thought and we managed to play pretty well, at least making it to the next day for the semi-finals. Most of the games were pretty tame, with some standard "streetball" roughness involved, but nothing serious - except for our last game.

Now I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to interactions with black people. I went to a high school where the population of black people was outnumbered by our school's population of gay Librarians. And it could have easily been just a coincidence that they were black because ass-hole's exist in all shapes and sizes, but damn, these blacks were supreme ass-hole's. I'll try to set the scene. We are 4 average sized white guys and they are 4 large black men. Each was at least 6' with an average weight of at least 250. So right off the bat, we are fairly intimidated, especially in an outdoor, streetball setting. But we came to play, and don't really care too much initially. We couldn't have been less prepared for what would happen as they seemed like fairly mild mannered dudes pre-game. Within the first 20 seconds of play, they've already received 2 fouls, 2 flagrant fouls and a technical foul. For some reason they just want to kick the shit out of us. After every in-game confrontation they would verbally threaten us, basically implying that they will fuck us up if we say or do anything. It was pretty scary and I didn't really know what to do. I mean, they were way way past the line of trash talking. Everything was said in an intense, non-playful manner. I initially thought they could only be joking because, what did they really expect us to do? But after the third elbow to the temple and the fourth blatant shove to the ground, all humor was lost. I could only keep a cool head and just try to play as best as I could. The ref was useless, making the occasional foul call but basically letting them have their way with us. And it wasn't even as if they were good players. They couldn't shoot, couldn't pass or really play defense. Their only strength was their physical advantage, which they "used" to their advantage at every illegal opportunity. One time I was actually toppled onto on the ground during a rebound scuffle, then grabbed directly by the throat. I just tried to get up without reacting, but that strategy was met with an intentional off-play elbow to the face which resulted in yet another technical foul.

I mean it was just about as ridiculous as the size of that last paragraph.

So to make a long story short, we stayed competitive with them despite their ridiculous behavior, eventually losing 16-12. I believe their final words when walking off court was "fuckin punk ass bitches". And I realize this story seems kind of one sided. You are probably sitting there assuming that I'm not telling the other side of the story - that we were equally as aggressive and confrontational. But I'm not joking. Everything they did completely caught us off guard as we never did anything to antagonize them. They were just mean, senseless, black ass-holes.

It was just a ridiculous incident which should have never been allowed. They were clearly in the wrong, at times bordering on criminal physical activity. And we were left with no recourse. We couldn't even say anything, let alone do anything. How they managed to get past one game without getting kicked out is amazing to me. And I'm all for competitive, aggressive play and trash talk. Our team actually enjoys a rough game. But we aren't going to go out there and fear for our fucking lives just to play an essentially meaningless basketball game.

Anyways the point of this post I guess was to say that I've never really been involved in an uninitiated act of violence with anyone before. I mean, if we were being mouthy or physical I would understand retaliation. But for them to just randomly attack us for the entire game, it just, well doesn't make black people look very good, especially with their entourage cheering them on. Like I said though, it may be a sample size thing, as I have very little experience with black people, but I can confidently say that in my many sports altercations I've never ever had to deal with anything like that shit.

I knew I should have brought my gat...

Save a horse ride a schoolboy

Short update because I've been hilariously busy lately.

But obviously not busy enough to 1 table a random late night meaningless H.O.R.S.E. tournament and win it! (despite never playing HORSE more than 2-3 times in my life)
















JEEEA BITCHES BE SCURRRED OF MY HORSEABILITIES

As the next picture shows I was dominating the whole way.












Pretty sure this means I was meant to be a HORSE player. Cya at the WSOP final table.


So random

Downswings

Downswings happen

Especially in poker!

I'm 100% sure that the number one reason that good players are good is because of their ability to play through downswings, not go on monkey tilt, and maintain their bankroll.

I think I have this ability almost 50% mastered!

And 50% is a passing grade where I come from.

When you talk to people, and read people's postings on various websites about poker, it seems that everyone has a general understanding of what this game is all about. I've thought about this a lot, because it seems as though everyone on 2+2 plays the very same style of poker that I do. And it doesn't make sense that everyone is always winning. Downswings are inevitable due to random variance, and since everyone has the same skill level in poker (obviously untrue but stay with me) then what must separate the has from the has beens is tilt control.

It seems trivial. Tilt. It's for the weak. And no one considers themselves weak. So its a very easy aspect to ignore. But it exists. And it can fucking destroy your bankroll without you even being aware of it.

Ok, so I basically just made this fluffy little post as an excuse to post my recent downswing and subsequent (long-overdue) upswing that followed. It was an ugly few weeks I have to tell you. Probably the most stressful 2-3 weeks of my life. And yes, there was definitely some tilt in there.















I'm definitely proud of this graph, in fact, I'm crying right now looking at it. The fact that one simple smiley faced graph can represent so much emotion to me is just a beautiful thing. Thinking back to my lowest moments, I couldn't imagine life being worse. I also couldn't imagine ever recovering. I mean, I knew it would probably happen eventually, but it was such an abstract, impossible thought at the time that it would be almost irrational to believe in it.

Ok, thanks.

Chasing losses - A +EV venture

I think I had a semi-epiphany tonight.

It was 2am and I had just gotten back from a double feature at the drive-in (Shrek 3 and Disturbia, neither were that great). I was tired from the weekend but I wanted to get some hands in anyways, so I loaded up 5 tables at Party.

An hour went by and I'm obviously stuck about $300. Great, what a fucking stupid idea that was.

I then considered my options. I didn't feel I was playing that badly, maybe a little bit passive, but most of the losses were the of the gay suckout/cooler variety (KQ>KK all in preflop obviously). I felt that I could still continue to play profitably. And I am aware thats what every poker player in the universe says when they are stuck.

So in the midst of this thought process I was still playing, and still losing (84s on a AKQ flop is obviously good sir, continue playing, flush draws are like 90% vs sets). I was about to quit. But then I finally hit some big hands vs stations, got payed off and got back to even and then some, ending the night up $150 or so.

After going over what just transpired I realized that my comeback in terms of dollars was fairly insignificant but the boosts to my confidence and overall poker psyche was damn near priceless. As I've learned throughout the past 2 years, I am emotionally effected by my poker results, despite my best efforts otherwise. Losing breeds losing for me and it takes a long time to rebuild my confidence. And without confidence, you aint shit in poker.

So while if I had quit earlier when I was down a few hundred, it wouldn't have really hurt my bankroll, but it may have started a chain reaction of negative emotions that ultimately leads to Bustoville.

So maybe chasing losses isn't such a bad thing, as long as you can keep a level head about it. It might even save your life some day.

And heres the graph just for fun: