new update

Ok so my quest hasn't exactly gone to plan.

Actually, March has been pretty much the exact fucking opposite of what I planned out to do.

I had some updates up here earlier in the month but took them down when I abandoned my quest mid month in an angry fit of self-loathing embarrassed rage.

If anyone is following along on pokertableratings.com, my month probably looks pathetic. I wouldn't know though since I subscribe to the "ignorance is bliss" frame of mind, and hence, ignore all my results.

All I know is that I'm getting my ass handed to me day after day.

Its actually pretty remarkable, especially considering the content of my last post. I literally haven't posted a losing month in my history of poker playing. I've come close, but never have I actually lost money throughout a month. And up to this point, I hadn't really even tried that hard to avoid it, it just sort of happened naturally.

So of course, the only mother fucking month I actually try to make money - I lose.

So what went wrong?

Well for one, I clearly overestimated my ability to 16 or even 12 table 200NL. This isn't to say that I can't do it profitably, but most likely only marginally. And with marginal wins, comes the increased probability of big losses.

Now these losses were probably a combination of the standard two things that go wrong when any poker player is losing.

1. Bad Luck
2. Bad Play

Its an unavoidable cycle. Eventually you will just run into a sickening run of cards where your aces get cracked 40 times in a row and you begin to lose your mind. In the back of your head you understand math and probability but there is a portion of your mind that is pure instinct and monkey brained that wants to take a shit on everything bad that happens to it and throw it at people. The more you play, the more you can contain this monkey, but every so often (especially when 16 tabling) the beats become unbearable and the instinct monkey appears in all its glory to destroy your remaining bankroll.

Smart players just stop when they see him appear. And to be honest, for the past year I don't remember even seeing him once. But with 16 tables and aces losing 40 times in a row, it was just something my brain wasn't ready to deal with.

Of course this is all theory. In reality I could just be a marginal break even poker player who's finally seeing the other side of variance. I hate to even consider this, especially after my boasting in my last post, but after approximately 100k hands of losing, there aren't that many other conclusions that can be drawn.

So what to do from here?

Well, I need to retool my game and get back to the basics. Really think about every decision (sigh) and actually "work" (fuck). I was in love with the idea of passively winning thousands a day, but I guess nothing is that easy.

I managed to 4 table last night for about 8 hours and actually felt very good about my overall game and really felt in control of every table I was at. Its a slow rebuilding process but its the only way back to glory.

So umm.. April will be different?

Oh and thanks to all the support I got through comments, emails and IM's. Poker is a tough gig sometimes because people generally don't give two shits when you lose, and losing is something you never get used to. Its nice to have support.