Parting Ways and Staking...

I'm no longer with imawhale staking. Overall it was a great experience and over the ten months I was with them I met some great people and learned a lot. If feel my game has improved significantly over this time. Basically I want to be with a staking group that can provide more player development, mentoring, coaching and support. While Shane has a good staking group none of those things are really provided for the players. 

Poker is so tough these days and players need every edge they can get. I really hope to find a backing group that really does what's necessary to help their horses be the best they can be. 

One thing I learned while being with imawhale and while looking for a new backer is how haphazardly so many people apply for staking. Shane would get applications with tons of spelling and grammar mistakes. I read threads from backers on Two Plus Two and Pocket 5s stating exactly how to apply and then see people posting doing completely the opposite. 

Applying for staking is the same as applying for a job. If you write a resume you always make sure it's properly formatted and grammatically correct with no spelling errors, why would you not do the same when applying for staking. Since so many people don't seem to get this I thought I give some advice here:

Most backers post threads on popular poker forums like those linked above. They will state the information they need from you and ask you to send this to them in a private message. Most staking groups also have websites with staking applications. When you fill out the application or message the backer make sure you provide all the information asked for in a organized manner. Be sure you double check your spelling and grammar. Be sure you give them all the information they need to check your poker statistics and results. 

Stakers get numerous applicants and if they get messages and applications that are a disorganized mess they aren't going to bother to read more than the first sentence or two. If you can't follow simple directions how are you going to keep spreadsheets or data for them to keep up with your play and results if they back you. 

Do something to make your application stand out or make your results easy to access. I created a Google presentation document with information about my playing history, links to all my stats and screenshots of my tracked SharkScope results and graphs. I set it to share with anyone who has the link. I can use it to link in private messages or applications and on Twitter or forums if I'm selling live action. You can view it here for an example. 

Most importantly make sure you have good references and don't do things to hurt or destroy your reputation in the poker community. If you roll on a stake or play things you aren't cleared to play or other sketchy things you're going to have trouble ever getting backing again and these days serious players need backing. 

If you're new to the poker world get active on either of the above linked forums and post and be active. When it comes time to take your game to the next level and apply for staking or sell live action if you haven't been active on the forums you're going to have a problem. 

As for me I have one offer on the table and possibly one or two other good possibilities. I'm trying to take my time and be sure I go with the right group. For now I'm playing on my own dime, which is actually no fun. I hate having to worry about bankroll management and those things playing on your own dime require. I'll be so happy when I have another backing group in place.

Procrastination

I'm so awful at updating this blog. It's not that I have nothing to write about because I do. Lots of things have happened since my last blog. So much that it'll probably take 3 blogs to write about it all. So why do I never write in this blog. Well it's obviously because I'm such a huge procrastinator. Why do today what we can put off until tomorrow.

Maybe it's because I have several things to write about and I can't decide where to start. Maybe there is so much in my head that I can't sort it out enough to get it written down. Maybe I'm ridiculously unorganized. Maybe other things are more fun to do than writing a blog. I mean really, had you rather write a blog or get sucked out on a minimum of three hundred and fiddy times in under two hours. Now that's just too fun to miss. If that's not good enough I can rail the assclowns who got it in horribly bad when they make the final table of the tournament they busted me out of. I mean nothing is more fun than watching a completely incompetent moron win lots of money with the chips he won off you when he called your 21BB reshove with 67o and hit trips, right?

No seriously, I've just been on a pretty brutal downswing and haven't really been motivated to write. Especially since I vowed not to write whinny blogs. Tonight however, I was pretty down and disgusted after another particularly brutal Sunday grind. I was on Skype talking to a friend and said I was beginning to wonder if I was even capable of beating these games. He's coached me a good bit and knows my game better than anyone and we had a session the other day. That session was really enlightening because I saw so many things I had reverted back to doing. I had basically gone back to many of my old nitty ways. I ask him if he thought I was capable of being a winning player. His response was if you'll get back to way you were playing a few months ago and not the way you're playing now, yes you are. That's when it dawned me...

I'm a huge fan of Jared Tendler's The Poker Mindset, in the book he talks a lot about conscious and unconscious competence. Being that unconscious competence are things we know so well they are second nature like folding 72o and things like that. We don't really have to think about a lot of plays we make because they are very basic and we've made them so often we just do them without thinking. Conscious competence are skills we've learned but we have to think to utilize these skills. When our emotions reach a certain level it becomes really hard to make our brain function properly and we tend to revert to the things we do without much thought. This is what happens when we tilt really bad, our brains go on some kind of overload and all we can manage are the things we just do but don't have to think through. What I think is going on with me is while I'm not tilted in the obvious sense of the word, the emotions from a prolonged downswing have accumulated and cause me to have trouble doing the things that I've learned but haven't mastered and I've reverted back to the those things I don't have to think about. So I'm going to have a couple of poker free days and get my head straightened out and come back and do some reviewing and studying for a day or so and then get back to poker with a clear head and better attitude.

...and in my next blog update, which I promise will be soon, I will talk about my first WSOP circuit event and my first tracked live cash. Until then remember "You will eventually run worse than you ever thought possible, but the difference in winner and a loser is the loser thinks he doesn't deserve it". No idea who said this but it's all too true.