Practice as if you are the worst...

I recently realized after going through a long downswing that part of my problem was that my confidence level was really low. I second guessed every play I made and just didn't believe I'd ever get to playing winning poker. The lower my confidence sunk the more I just couldn't win. It became a vicious circle. 

During this time there were some poker friends who were very critical of my play and while I'm sure they meant to be constructive it just made my confidence even lower. I'm now around a new group of players and have found that I can hold my own with most of them. There are a few serious sickos who I will continue to strive to play as well as but for the most part I don't feel totally outmatched. When I first joined the Imawhale staking group I was really worried that the other MTT players would be so ahead of me that it would just make  my confidence worse but I found the exact opposite to be true. This is the nicest group of guys and they are all so supportive and helpful and they never make me feel like a poker moron, even though I can be one at times.  

Things are going so well, I just finished my first set of games and finished with a nice profit. My second set started off a little rough but it's starting to pick up. I had two final tables tonight with a first and second place finish and one other cash. Tonight at one of my tables I think I got one of the nicest compliments a tournament player can receive, two people at the table told me I scared them, LOL. I didn't think I was that scary actually and I'm glad to know I may have been mistaken. 

Just remember, poker can be a brutal game. Play your best and study hard and surround yourselves not with people who make you feel worse but with people who help you to feel better. 

The Monster Turn Around

It appears that my downswing is on the upswing. This week I won the coveted Mid-Week Monster on Merge for just over $4000 and the same night I made two other final tables with a second and third finish for a $5K day. I love $5K days and they’re hard to come by in the U.S. online poker world these days. 

Between last Saturday and today I made 7 final tables one of which was my first final table on the Revolution Network and two were on True Poker with the others on Black Chip Poker (Merge).  Since starting with Imawhale (see blog here) I’ve  made 11 final tables. My second biggest cash was forth in the True $50K guarantee for $3400. 

I have to say that my game today is much improved as compared to even six months ago. A lot of things that I had a hard time with a few months back have really started coming together and making sense to me . Poker is such a complicated game and it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to get to a point where you can really win consistently. In retrospect I really was running bad but I was also not playing my best either and the longer the runbad continued the worse it affected my game. 

I did a good bit of reading over the last couple of months and I read Jared Tendler’s The Mental Game of Poker which is a must read for any serious poker player. It will not only change the way you look at variance and your poker game but it will even help you with everyday life things as well. I love the learning concept and I’m really seeing where as my A game improves so does my C game so that even on a not so great day I’m playing the same game that I considered my A game a few months back, thus helping in the consistent winning department. 

Two other great books I’ve read that I highly recommend are Kill Everyone and Raiser’s Edge. Kill Everyone covers a lot of fundamentals without being boring to an intermediate player and Raiser’s Edge goes into much more complicated play on a more advanced level. Reading these three books helped me tied up many lose ends with things I was struggling with as well as giving me ideas for adding new twist and turns to my play book. (LOL I think that sounds lame but I’m leaving it.)

No matter how rough things seem and how shitty bad variance gets just know that:

1. It’s probably not all bad variance so work hard to step up your game.

2. The part of it that is bad variance is something you can do nothing about so deal with it and stick it out and it will end eventually. (Try to whine as little as possible, it's really annoying but a little is allowed)

My very favorite quote and one I repeat to myself often is...

“You will eventually run worse than you ever thought possible, the difference in a winner and a loser is the loser thinks he doesn’t deserve it” 

It’s true you will, I just did and guess what, I’m sure sometime in the future I’ll run even worse than this time. I’ve had a few stretches of bad variance and the good thing is with each new one I’m able to handle it better than the last one and that is progress. Yep that sounds lame too but oh well. Here’s to some extended run good and play good!