EVEN

The repeated nut stomping is over (temporarily). I has climbed out of my downswing, maybe my bills will be paid this month after all.

The total freefall damage done was -$7392, 18.5 buyins which ties the most "buyins" lost downswing but since that was at 200NL, this was doubly bad.

It was a tough road crawling back but I had evidence that most of my losses were due to ridiculously bad luck and not bad play. Ok some bad play, fuck off, I dropped $5k in one day, give me a break.

There was also a point where I crawled back a decent amount (3-4kish) then obviously dropped right back down to ground zero. It was super disheartening and actually pushed my frail psyche into a new dimension of pain. But I didn't have much choice other than to keep playing and forgetting the past.

And now, here I stand, victorious.

The graph:













Coming back from downswings definitely makes you a better player as you are forced to reevaluate your game. Its unlikely that I was doing something wrong, but its very hard to keep thinking that when the losses keep coming. Recovery from it is one of the best feelings in poker.

And on a different note, I've been wanting to make a bunch of small changes in my life for a long time. Things like eating better, getting more exercise, standard shit. Most of the time these thoughts enter and leave my mind within the timespan of a 1 poker hand, but I think I've done something that will hopefully be a bit more effective.

I decided to make a list with a point system of all the things I want to improve on in my life. Every time I do something on the list, I get a "point". At the end of the week I tally up all the points and record them in a spreadsheet. I will be able to track my progress from week to week and eventually be able to make a uber l33t graph.

And in order to keep the incentive strong my girlfriend along with some other friends of mine decided to do the same, and make a weekly competition out of it. If nothing else, just having other people aware of the things I want to improve will give me a bit more motivation to do them.

Heres my list:

Lift Weights
Elliptical > 20 minutes
Clean a room thoroughly
Take a shower
Goto bed before 1am
Eat daily breakfast
No chocolate during week (5 points)
Eat 1 piece of fruit
Read a book (5 points)
Tidy all used dishes in a day
Do an outdoor activity (5 points)
Do something creative (5 points)
Drink 4 cups of water / day
Work over 6 hours
Eat a daily salad
Take vitamins
Talk to Christine for an hour without distraction
Improve the house in someway (5 points)
Don't eat after 9pm
Sleep no more than 8 hours
Find a new musical artist that you enjoy
Lose 2 pounds (5 points)
Try a new food
Clean an unusual item
Eat at a fast food restaurant (negative points)

I'm still working out the point system for achieving each item. Ultimately I would like to have each item on the list rewarded equally to its inherent difficulty and personal reward for doing it. I wouldn't want something as trivial as taking a shower to be worth the same amount of points as working out daily because then I would just cheat and only shower to get mad points. Yes, I'm that pathetic.

This system will start next week, and if it works for me, my life will forever be changed. Heres hoping.