...and the run continues

Welcome to poker hell. You big hands don't get paid off, when they do, it's because they're up against better hands, your bluffs never work, and it happens for so long that you start to doubt every single aspect of your game.


This is how it's been for me for a good 3 months now. The money I've lost from the beats, coolers, and bad play of my own have dwindled my bankroll to a fraction of what it once was. It's not the end of the world, but I can feel myself approaching that point where I just don't give a shit anymore, but obviously I really don't want to see myself vaporize the rest of my bankroll. I still believe there's money to be made in the game, and that I can propel myself either into a full-blown professional poker career, or kickstart some other career for myself should I choose to leave the game.

So I need a plan. I need to figure out what's wrong, what I need to do to fix it, and how I will do it.

One thing that I can't help is the luck. I'm down nearly $8,000 in EV in the last 75k hands, and would guesstimate there's another 2k in coolers in there. Not fun, but there's absolutely nothing I can do about that except play within bankroll restrictions to ensure I don't go broke. That by the way has led me back down to 100nl for the first time in months. A big hit to my ego in a sense, but as I said there's just nothing I can do about it. Moving down might actually help me in that the regs and fish are so much worse that it may boost my confidence again.

Otherwise, I have to spot the leaks in my game. I'm not a stats genius and am having a little trouble running filters and stuff to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I could get coaching, but my bankroll's so small I just don't think I can afford it. Luckily, both Alan and Stosh are in a position where they can offer free sessions here and there. Alan himself has been on a massive 300k hand breakeven stretch (remember he's formerly a massive mid-high stakes winner over millions of hands). It scares the shit out of me to think that someone so strong can run bad for so long.

Talks with CC members (Fredrik, BW, and coaching Icemonkey) have been great. It always helps to discuss poker and start thinking of it in a logical way rather than "for fucks sake, he's got the nuts again" type thinking.

So with respect to poker, I can apply myself a little better and start bugging you guys and the stox coaches for more sessions. That has to help.

With respect to my mental game, I'm not sure how much longer I can afford Jared's coaching. He's phenomenal, but he's about 250 per session which is starting to hurt. I unfortunately fuck up my side of the bargain by not doing a lot of the stuff we talk about, so maybe I can simply get coaching less often from him and apply myself more to try and actually get the stuff we talk about done.

One more thing that's been taking way too fucking long is this rakeback deal. There's all type of delays happening with Expekt's rep and a mixup with my username, and it looks like it'll still be a while before we close the deal. That should be a huge help, providing some sort of consistency to my profit with %50 rakeback(/bonuses). I've even looked at propping, but there are so many restrictions with it that I'm not sure it's something I want to do.

I have a feeling that once the ipoker deal goes through, the change of scenery and added rakeback could spark a change in my swings. I reeeeally hope so, because I'm really getting sick of all this shit.

So anyways, my plan is:

- more skype/aim talks with friends/coaches
- mark hands in HEM for general leak-finding
- replay audio of last session with Jared, take notes
- maybe reread Elements of Poker
- get out more, spring's always good to put a smile on my face :)