Love it, hate it, hate it, love it...

When I first started playing I had naive thoughts of becoming pro by the time I was 20. I remember hearing from more seasoned players that they would never consider playing pro in their lifetime, regardless how good they were, and thought they were bonkers. I'm only now beginning to understand them.

Simply put, I think most intelligent people could develop the skills needed to make a living from poker. There's more to it than that, though. It takes a very disciplined, psychologically very strong person to be able to deal with the ups and downs of this game. Poker is swingy. "Poker" and "consistency" should never be in the same sentence, save this one. Or one with "is not" before "consistent". Well you get my point anyways.

I played several 2-table SnGs earlier today, and got tossed around like a ragdoll. AA loses to AKs. ATs loses to A9s. Top two pair gets flushed. More beats. I got so pissed at one point that I slammed my desk and said "what the FUCK is with these swings???". That's poker, Chuck. Suck it up.

Poker is all in the long-term, and as Larry Phillips puts it, the long run is longer than you think. If you can ignore the frustration and tilt that the beats brings as well as the 'winners tilt' and overconfidence that winning big pots brings, then you're set.

Back to poker; I ended up taking a break, eating some lunch and walking the dog, then I came back to play some more. Queue upswing. I fired up two SnGs, and go on a rush which mirrored the ugliness that happened earlier. AA first hand doubles me up on one table. KK on the third hand doubles me up on the other. QQ wins another big pot. JJ pads more to my stack. It goes on.

I somehow ended up only barely cashing in one of those two, but end up finishing the day with positive profits after playing a few more. But god damn I hate the swings sometimes. It's like Mike Tyson decides to come along and practice his hooks and crosses on my emotional body. Then Jessica Alba comes along and porks me 'til I feel like a king. Sigh.

Well needless to say, I don't think I could ever be a full-time professional; probably not because I don't think I have the drive and skills to do it, but because I don't think I could handle the emotional stress. I think the farthest I'll go will probably be playing a few hours after I come home from my regular job, hopefully raking in some 5k+ paydays occasionally to help pay for the toys et al.

Then again, you never know what the future will bring. Maybe I'll fall in love with live poker and find I'm much better at it than I am online, and become a millionaire. Maybe I'll find that this is all just a gambling problem and I end up on the corner of Queen and Bathurst drinking Listerine.

I'm ranting again...anyways, today ended up finishing the day with another FLHE session; this time only one table and only a hundred hands, but I did well. Maybe not as well as I should have considering the cards I was getting dealt, but I'm happy.

On a side note, I really haven't worked on my midterm as much as I should have so far. Have to get to work on that sooooontime.