The Hope

Deep breaths, deep breaths. 

I grabbed a coffee around 10 PM and got ready for a fun night of MTTs, 180s, and Hyper SNGs.  I can't remember the last time I pulled an all-nighter and it's been so long that it sounded like fun.  Of course, I forgot about how easily everything can go awry. 

It's a combination of things.  Negative variance, high amounts of caffeine, and no outlet for me to vent the frustration.  If it were day-time I could hit the gym, ride my motorbike around the more scenic areas of town, check out the local market, catch a movie, and do several other things to clear my mind.  But at night?  I can stay cooped up in my apartment and let slowly the anger subside, or I can drink it away at one of several nearby bars. I'm proud of myself that I didn't do the latter.  At least not today.

About forty-five minutes into my set, the action stopped.  The PokerStars client became unresponsive, meaning I must have lost connection.  I gave it a second to re-connect, but when that didn't happen I logged out and logged back in. Took about a minute total, which wouldn't be a huge deal if I were playing only 180s.  Sure, I'd lose a BB or two and likely a few +EV spots, but I could live with that because I wasn't deep in any of them.  But in Hypers?  Ouch.  The few BBs I lost were crucial percentages of my chipstack.  In some games that stack had been completely blinded away.  I felt so helpless, so upset, and decided to stop loading games. 

And then, like that, the connection was fine.  Fast, fluid, perfect.  After an hour or so I got up the courage to add in a set of Hypers and all of a sudden, it went out again.  This time logging out/back in took more time and therefore I lost more chips, more equity, and more money. 

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.

I fired off two e-mails to PokerStars and now all I can do is hope for reimbursement.  It's not a guarantee by any means, but their customer service is second to none in this industry and I hope they're able to make things right.  Even if I am reimbursed this issue will certainly affect my bottom line, as now I'm a bit gunshy to load games and will likely take some time off.  Guess that means I have more time to do other stuff, so it looks like tomorrow I'll be heads up with Iron Man 3.