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.

Cruisin

Well after thinking a lot about what I talked about in my last post and how I don't play as well in the lower buyins as I do in the higher ones, I've smartened up some. I played several $6.50/18s and $16/18s and although I haven't won any, I've cashed enough to give me a nice profit. Some bad beats and some shorstacked pushing gone bad resulted in some 3rd and 4th place finishes.

Stars actually has some very evenly-weighted payout structures (%10/%20/%30/%40) which means shooting for first shouldn't be as much of a priority as it normally is with STTs or MTTs. Placing regularly in any pay spot should show a nice profit long-term; it's just that first isn't a huge deciding factor in your long-term success.

Anyways, I played a few of those, played well and made a little dough. I also just finished playing my first FLHE session in quite a while, and finished up well there too after nearly doubling my buyin in only a hundred hands or so. The more I read SSH (almost done now), the more I realize how much work my game needs. I'm still terrible with pot odds on the spot, and still can't count outs as well as I'd like (it goes beyond flush draw outs/overcard outs etc).

I also went to the job fair I mentioned earlier today. My buddy came along and drove us there which saved a lot of time and money, but the job fair wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Most of the jobs were for banks, financial advising companies and other jobs I wasn't looking for as opposed to trades. There was one trade booth, and they said they were offering apprenticeships strictly outside of Ontario. Yay.

Something I've semi-seriously considered is actually trekking out to the prairie provinces to get a job where the economy is apparently just booming. I've heard of people going and working on oil rigs for a year or so and having money to live for the next ten. The oil rig jobs are bringing more people in, which in turn create more jobs for services (restaurants, bars, clothing chains etc etc). Hell, even McDonalds apparently gives $12 starting wage.

Just a thought.

Here's your video for the day. Andrew WK fucking rocks, and I don't care if you disagree or think all his songs sound the same.



There. If that's not the best love song you've ever heard, then you're nuts.

Psychological barriers

I think a big problem of mine is that I rarely play my "A game". While that sounds like a nice, cocky excuse for not winning as much as I'd like to, I really do think it's true.

Online poker separates you from the money you're playing with. I rarely play live anymore, but I know that a player is usually in a different mindset when they put $200 in cold hard cash down on a table rather than $200 'online dollars'. When you rarely see the actual physical money getting moved around, it starts to feel more like a video game than a game of poker; I personally find that I don't value each buyin for what it's actually worth, and I no longer play my best game.

For some, that could actually be a good thing. They say that the best of the best completely separate themselves from the money in order to play optimally no matter what they're playing for (how else would Ivey and co. play 50/100k HU?). For me, though, it's a big problem.

I'm posting this because I realized how much better I played in that $60 tourney in comparison to how I play in the $6.50s or $16s. In my first year or so of playing, I used to have a note pinned right under my monitor that read in big, bold letters, "STOP AND THINK". I would often make spur of the moment decisions without thinking a hand through, and it cost me bundles. I've had it removed for ages now after finally overcoming that problem, but I might have to do something similar to try and correct my new problem. Maybe I'll tape a $20 bill there instead to remind me what I'm playing with.