Luckily, this is not one of those times. I've got a lot on my mind and will do my best to address all of it.
On Sunday, I finished 5th in the $11 $20k Guaranteed for $1.8k:
Hooray, right? I guess. I held the chiplead at the final table but my raises were met with a fair amount of aggression which caused me to slow down a bit. I lost a huge pot all-in pre with 44 vs Q2 and then found myself on the end of two hands that are effectively coolers. Oh well.
A couple of interesting conversations arose from my deep run in this tournament:
The first, with Ben (N0Bigdeal), was about whether or not I'm running good. On one hand, I've had a lot of deep finishes lately, at least in relation to the volume I've been putting in. More on that later. On the other, each deep run seems to be ending in cataclysmic fashion. This tournament's finish mirrored the $27 KO I played a day earlier: 15 left, chipleader, and then I lost two flips and as a 3-1 favorite -- Out in 9th.
The second conversation was with someone who doesn't play poker and I think that's where a lot of the disconnect stems from. When I told her that I felt blah despite winning $1.8k, she was confused about how/why I could feel that way. I did my best to explain that I figuratively and literally left money on the table by finishing in 5th; I felt I played well enough to deserve first place money ($6.7k) and was therefore slighted nearly $4k. Most poker players understand this concept and the painful toll it takes on your psyche but I feel she, like most people who don't play, saw it as me being ungrateful about winning a fair amount of money. Not so. I understand that making that much in a day (I actually only cleared $1.2k, but let's pretend) isn't "normal." Most people struggle to make that in a week, some even a month. But each deep run is an opportunity and I'm only going to feel good about the outcome if I finish in first. As crazy as it sounds, I'd feel better about shipping a tournament for $4k than compared to finishing 8th for $5k because in the first scenario, I won't stay awake at night thinking "what if."
My roommate and I are currently on nearly opposite schedules:
After a few days of waking up in the late afternoon/early evening, I managed to turn it around by drinking myself to sleep. Obviously that's not the most responsible way to get back on a normalized sleep schedule but hey, it worked. The last few days I've been getting out of bed super early (6-7 AM) and today I slept in 'til 9:30. I assume the pattern will continue, meaning I'll be waking up later and later throughout the week until eventually I'll have to drink again. When that happens, I'm buying a bottle of this:
Soooooooooo good. And I don't even like whiskey. Tastes like cinnamon, great by itself and mixes well with cola, tea, etc.
David, however, has been waking up in the mid evenings and going to bed around noon, which means we get to see each other for a few hours a day but spend most of our time focused on the grind. Honestly, I think that's best for both of us. He's been going through a two week long stretch of break-even and although that doesn't sound too bad, he's played 2,500+ games in that time. As for me, I prefer to play in solitude -- no idle chatter/unnecessary noise, just the sound of carefully crafted youtube playlists to get me in the right mindset.
My overall results are decent this month, despite the laughably low volume:
A few days ago I wanted to complain about my recent string of bad luck and realized I hadn't put in nearly enough games to do that. At that point I had played maybe 200 games for the entire month, not enough to overcome a bit of negative variance.
Feb 1st - 8th
Instead of sitting around and bitching about it, I decided to be pro-active and get in several hours of work. Since then (the 9th) I've played 735 games, most of which are 180s.
After Feb 9th
The peak hours for those games seems to be 8 AM to 4 PM, so if I can maintain some semblance of my current sleep cycle I'll be able to keep loading them up and taking them down.
Well, I've written enough here. In fact, there was so much text that I felt obligated to add more pictures. You're welcome.
3 comments:
Man that stuff looks good.
I think you are still wondering about "Los Santos" so you made this entry just so everyone who read it would look back to the past entry and maybe provide you with your answer. lol
@Nik: It is. We'll have some in...15 days.
@RcRaceChamp: Well played sir, I am still wondering about that...nh.
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