...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 :)

My week so far

-Losing
-Losing
-Losing
-PS gets laggy
-Internet dies soon after
-Called internet provider, turns out they didn't bother to tell me they halted my account until I called them about renewing my service with them
-Internet back up
-Try PS, still not working
-Find out modem is dead
-Replace modem
-Find out router is dead
-Dump router, so wireless is dead until I buy a new one
-Try PS, it's working, but lagging like fuck, and cuts me out in-session twice
-Call ISP, it's not them
-Phone is dead
-Call phone company, play phone tag with 3 different assholes before finally getting someone with half a brain, and only today is my internet 'working' (still lags some)
-I barely trust my connection playing online
-Go out to dinner with the lady to blow off steam
-Drop my awesome headphones on the way and step on them, crushing an earbud

Usually what happens is the phone line comes into your house, into a demarcation box which splits the lines so you can have more than one phone jack, and everything's good. What's happened in our house is that we did renovations, somehow lost the location of the demarcation box, and because of that they put a line directly into our house and into one phone jack which leads to our wireless phone hub. The problem with that is that there is no longer one rubber-coated line coming into the house. It's a flimsy little wire that's been connected outside our house that can easily be affected by rain, snow, or a fucking chipmunk running across it.

***
right on cue, my internet has cut out. Thank god for Blogger's post saving system.
***

So you can tell, this hasn't been the best of months. I've still managed 10k hands somehow, but they've been pretty horrible. Dropped 3k within the first 4k hands, started to claw my way back up to a highpoint of 1k under, then had another horrible day that dropped me back down to 2.5k under or so. Ran well today but I'm still pretty disappointed this has all come down at such a critical point.

I'm trying my damn hardest to work on all the stuff that Jared has been teaching me, but it's been hard. Well that is it's hard when I play. When I can't play, I can't practice tilt control or following the process model (of prep., play, and evaluation).

I'm planning on moving out, getting my own place and having my girlfriend live with me and pay her side of things while she does. I've still got about 20k CDN, and I think that'll be enough for a place with ~$1500/month rent. I figure for one or two people with utilities and food it shouldn't be more than 2k/month. And having said that, I believe having 10 months expenses is pretty safe. Not that that 20k is static and guaranteed, but at least it's there now. Most don't even have first and last saved up when they get an apartment.

Once I did move out and got everything sorted (I figure one month to move all my shit, maybe two if there are delays), I think I'd be in the clear. All the time in the world to grind and start actually having to take care of myself.

The apartment is also awesome because it's a huge warehouse, something that the owner doesn't care about taking care of. ie, I could drill a speedbag mount into the wall as well as my flat screen and all that type of stuff.

Not to mention an ACTUALLY CONSISTENT internet connection!!! Imagine that!

I think before I make the commitment I need to really sit down and calculate everything to make sure it would work out alright. Unless I go on some ridiculous run where I drop 10k or something, I'm not really in any danger of not being able to pay for the bills though. That feels pretty awesome.

I played for an hour or so today, ran really well which was nice for a change. Still have a bad taste in my mouth from the rest of the month, but at least I reminded myself what it's like to actually win.

Spring's here and I'm sitting writing a blog, how lame. Gonna go grab a beer and chill on my porch, invite some friends over and then go celebrate St. Paddy's day! Have fun all, and don't die Liam.