First thank you to my friend Kelly for posting this on Facebook. By my last bust of my first WSOP trip I was feeling all these negative feelings. I was feeling totally defeated and had decided I could never be good enough to beat this game of poker that I so love. After getting home and having time to rest and reflect I realize that I spent a lot of time "saying" I work hard at poker but do I really?
What is working hard? Is playing a lot working hard? Do I even play a lot, or nearly as much as I should? Do I spend enough time reviewing my game and looking for reasons why I lose? Do I spend enough time studying and watching videos or reading to learn new ways to approach the game? The answer to most of these things is no, I don't. So instead of blaming my losses on variance and other things it's time to figure out what I need to do to win. Time to stop talking and start working, really working. Time to realize I do have what it takes to beat this game if I just spend more time playing my A game and a lot less time on auto pilot playing my C game. We all play our C game at times but the real winners play their A game much more than their C game and as we improve our A game our C game improves as well so that those times when we slip into our C game we are still playing a winning game. Right now my C game is not a winning game. My A game is but I don't play it often enough. I'd venture to say that I play my A game about 30% of the time I play and the rest of time I'm playing my B or C game. Then I complain about running bad when in reality I'm just not playing as well as I'm capable of. In Vegas I really did get the bad end of the cards a lot of the time but made plenty of mistakes and some times I just totally spewed. I do the same online and I've gotten to where I play much too loose in the wrong spots. So instead of giving up and feeling defeating I hope to turn this experience into inspiration and use it to get my game where it needs to be and end victoriously.
Well I don't want to spend time blogging about how god awful I ran, even though I did. I bricked everything, the only cash I had was chopping a $125 sit n go for $540. I could do nothing right, constantly ran good into better, rarely got even my best planned bluffs through and just generally couldn't have run much worse. Of course I made some mistakes as well but nothing huge that I could put my finger on.
I played 21 tournaments and/or sit n go satellites and had only that one small cash. It was discouraging at best and soul wrenching at worse. My game obviously needs lots of work. While I truly don't seem to be able to win flips where it counts most. I truly believe no one can have the bad results I've had for the length of time I've had them and not be doing quite a few things wrong.
I'm sure at this point my total lack of confidence in my decisions is having a huge impact on my overall game but I also think I just have some leaks I'm not seeing.
The time has come to step back and re-evaluate everything. I don't know if I'm even capable of beating this game anymore to be honest, at least not without a lot of work and effort.
Vegas was fun, I got to meet a lot of people I'd only known online and they were all the greatest. We had several fun nights and overall that part of the trip was really fun.
One of the best things was seeing a friend from online make two really deep runs in two bracelet events, one of which was the Millionaire Maker where he finished 7th for over $211K. He later finished 3rd in a $1k buy in event for another $204K and chopped a daily deepstack for $20K. I can only imagine how he must feel. He's a very good solid player so combining that with the cards just lining up and things going right for him must be an amazing feeling. Maybe some day I'll get to know how that feels, right now it seems so unlikely.
I got to meet my backer, who is a great guy and I really appreciate his support and backing for this trip more than words can say. He's the best backer anyone could ever ask for and I feel so bad that during the whole time I've been with him I've never been able to make a dime for him. Luckily he understands variance and how truly brutal poker can be.
What now? I'm going to take a break from everything poker for a few weeks. No watching it, reading it, thinking about it, talking about it. No poker forums, no poker conversation on Skype. Absolutely no poker at all for a minimum of 2 to 4 weeks. I just really need to remove myself from it all together for awhile then come back with a clear head and spend the next few weeks doing nothing but studying and reviewing and maybe getting some coaching. I'd like to find someone who will take some hand histories and really spend the time breaking them down and seeing what I'm doing wrong. Unfortunately most coaches just seem to want spend time going over a hand history or two that they've never previously looked at and this has just done little to really get to the bottom of the issues, whatever they may be. I'd also like to get someone who specialized in live coaching as well, since live truly is a different animal than online.
Good luck to everyone still in the main event and to everyone still grinding it out online.
Well as we say here in the south, God willing and the creek don't rise I'm finally going to Vegas and playing in some WSOP events. I'm excited, slightly nervous and just can't wait to get there. I'm trying to play online some but just can't focus too well right now so I think most of my time will be better served studying, reviewing and preparing for the trip.
Currently sitting here watching the live stream of the casino employees final table. Last year I was running bad, disappointed that I wasn't going to get to go to Vegas and didn't even start paying attention to anything going on until the week before the main event. This year I'll be watching all the live streams and trying pick up everything I can. I'm leaving on June 18th and staying until July 6th. If things go well and I'm winning enough I may try to sat into the main event and stay longer. Unfortunately, I'm doing a lot of moving around and staying in 4 different places but it's all good, I'm just glad it worked out for me to stay that long. I'm joining in with some people from CardsChat forum for a team for the Little One for the One Drop. Each team member gets $222 to cover the rake and charity amount and the one who last longer gets the rest of their buy in back. We will all wear CardsChat hoodies and tweet and Facebook to help promote CardsChats. It's a great team and I'm really looking forward to participating with them in this event. I'll also be in Vegas for ladies week and I'll be playing a few ladies events, including the ladies WSOP event. I really enjoyed playing the ladies event in Cherokee and I'm really looking forward to playing these. Several women I've know online for a few years will be there and I'm looking forward to meeting them in person. I plan on doing some blog updates all along during my WSOP journey. I'm really trying to keep a positive attitude and make the very most of this opportunity without worrying about the end result of each game. I hope to do my best to play each hand and make each decision the best that I know how and just stay patient and focused. Bottomline I just want to.... (language warning)
Many women and even men may look at these ads and find it hard to believe people really had these type of attitudes towards women. They may even think things like "thank God it's not like that anymore". Well I have some news for you, it's not that much different now than then. Then men thought of women as inferior and expected them to stay "in their place". While that's bad and wrong at least back then men showed women respect. They didn't call them names, unless it was their wife in an angry moment, and they honestly, for the most part treated the women in their lives with respect.
I find it amazing that the generation of women who fought the hardest for female equality raised sons who are more sexist and more disrespectful towards women than any generation of men before them.
Poker is a very male dominated field so when you play a game that is very male dominated you have to expect and tolerate a certain amount of sexism, it's just the price we pay.
I love how men will say when talking about the WSOP or especially the WSOP Main Event "well how often do you see women get deep in those events". I find the fact that they don't even realize the statistical odds of a woman making a final table in a game where only 15% at best of the field are women ridiculous. The odds for a woman making the final table of the main event are something like 10:1 or worse, yet men use this fact to say women just aren't as good as men at poker.
Then there is the way women are treated on many poker forums, it's deplorable. I have to say I only run into this issue in off topic/news/gossip areas of forums (which I generally stay out of for this reason) but some of the things I've had said to me and the way some moderators acted like, "if you're gonna post here you gotta live with it" is just inexcusable and totally outrageous.
Here are a few recent quotes from one forum for your enjoyment:
"I'm actually surprised everybody agreed you suck. your vagina has no power here, OP. a few pics might change the score tho."
"skipped last post, woman again. sigh, guess i'll have to X thread"
"You should just go back to Facebooking and building your Pinterest wall."
"skipped dixis post because i know she is a woman. someone let me know when it has been removed and the thread is safe again"
This was all in response to a comment I made regarding Game of Thrones which was in no way a spoiler, those idiots wouldn't know a spoiler if it jumped up and bit them in the ass. Even when some guys are buying action from women they are more willing to invest in ladies events versus mixed field events.
Sorry it's just all piled up on me lately and I'm likely taking exception to things that are not meant the way they come across but this is the 21st century and you'd think things would actually be different for women by now, unfortunately while sexism may be wearing a new face it's still there.
Well with the exception of last year since 2009 March has always been my best poker month of the year. Last year it was one of my worst, if not my very worst month of the year. Here is a recap of all my Marches since I started playing.
March 2009 - My first real money cash for $645 on Players Only in the $250K guarantee where I finished 49th out of 909. I was such a huge fish back then. I went through this hand history awhile back and found it hilarious.
March 2010 - My first MTT win on PokerStars in the 1000 cap $4.40 4 max 2K guarantee. I talked about this one a bit in this post. Again I was still quite the fish but not quite as big of one as the previous year. I made some more money this month and made my first withdrawal in early April.
March 2011 - My first 4 figure cash and large MTT final table on PokerStars in the $11r $50K guarantee for $1541. It was all uphill from there and finished the month with my biggest profit ever which I believe was at least $4K. Unfortunately two weeks later Black Friday happened :(
March 2012 - My biggest cash and most profitable month to date. I finished 3rd out of over 2600 runners in the Poker Maximus Event 23 for $6,600 and had a profit of over $8K by the end of the month.
March 2013 - Down -$3400 and biggest cash the entire month was only $730. I only made 8 final tables and out of those only 3 were tops 3s and they were all 3rds. So..... March 2014 - Here's to hoping the March rungood returns It's so time for that long overdue 5 figure cash! In all honestly though there is no DUE in poker. It is what it is and the cards fall as they fall, I'm just hoping they fall a little better for me this March than last. I know my mental state is much better than it was last March. I didn't even realize it at the time but I was in a pretty bad frame of mind. I wasn't really happy with a lot of things at that time and I'm sure it had an affect on my play. It's so different now and my attitude in general is so different. I know when we choose to play this game we are going to lose a large majority of the time. I now have a great backer who seems to really care about his horses and not just how much money they can make for him. I really want to win and improve. I still have tons to work on especially mental game wise but things are coming together well. Good luck to all, let's make this a great month.
I can't control the cards, only the decisions I make.
I choose to stay positive and I choose to make good decisions.
The road of negativity, frustration and blame is a dead-end.
I will turn around and make winning happen!
Making this change from negativity to staying positive isn't easy and it takes constant work. I've had a pretty good 3 weeks since the coaching sessions and I've had 26 cashes. I've made 9 final tables and 5 were top 3 finishes and one of those was my first win in awhile. It felt so good to win one but for the first time in a long time I think had I finished 2nd instead of 1st I would have been okay with it. I played well, made good decisions and that is all I can do. As I say above the way the cards fall are out of our control. I'm getting much less frustrated late game and I'm letting the action happen as it will instead of trying to push it. I've stopped feeling like I have win every big pot and when beats happen and I lose a large chunk on my stack instead of going on major tilt I just get to work to try and build my stack back. Of course it doesn't always happen and when it doesn't I move on. A couple of things the guy I had the coaching sessions with said that have really stuck with me is 1. When we choose to play tournament poker we have to accept that most nights we go to bed a loser. 2. You know who cares about your bad beats? NO ONE! 3. It's all about choices, we choose to make the right decisions and play well or we don't, we choose to stay focused or we don't. I learned that I have nothing to prove to anyone and I don't care what anyone thinks of my game, except my backer of course, how I play is no one's business but mine. The goal is to play winning poker and how I manage it is my business and my business only! Tonight I saw a really good player make what at the time I considered a really bad play. I mentioned this play to some people in chat and they agreed it did sound like a bad play. This play was against me and he hit his card and because of the SPR I had to pay him off when he jammed the flop over my c-bet. So the play, even though it seemed bad and may not be a play one should make that often and it may actually be a losing play over a large sample, it got him doubled up. The more I talked about it the more I understood that just because the majority of players and even poker theory consider something fundamentally wrong doesn't mean you can't ever do it. With the small edge we have sometimes doing the most unexpected awards the greatest result. So all that said..... Life is good today!
"We are in hell right now, gentlemen believe me and we can stay here and get the shit kicked out of us or we can fight our way back into the light."
We can climb out of hell.
One inch, at a time.
The movie clip and quote above are From Any Given Sunday. The quote below is also but I'm changing it around as it pertains to the game of poker.
Life is just a game of edges. So is poker. Because in either game life or poker the margin for error is so small. I mean one missed hand,
one distraction at the wrong time.
One decision made a second too fast can mean the difference in winning or losing. The edges are so small that we can't
afford to miss one single spot. The edges are in every break of the game every minute, every second.
We fight for every edge We tear ourselves, and everyone around us to pieces for that edge. We CLAW with our finger nails for that edge. Cause we know when we add up all those edges
(no matter how small) that's going to make the difference between WINNING and LOSING between LIVING and DYING.
I watch this clipoften before I play. Choosing to play poker seriously isn't for the faint of heart. You have to love it and you have to want to win as much as you want to breathe (I heard that somewhere too, just don't remember where).
As for the edges, poker gets tougher and tougher and edges get smaller and smaller. If you're an online player and you think you can watch T.V., talk to people on Skype and surf all over internet and still play your A game, I have news for you, you are wrong. All of these things are taking your attention away from your game. With the edges being so small you can't afford to miss one single spot in any game you're playing. If you're playing a lot of tables it is even more important that you remove the distractions around you and put all your focus on the game.
I've been as guilty as anyone else in the past of doing all of the above. Even trying to look back at your PokerTracker or Holdem Manager to go through some hand you just lost is a distraction. Unless you need to look at it quickly for information on someone at the table or make a quick note, you should be marking questionable hands and going over them later. I've be guilty so many times of posting hands in Skype chat and trying to discuss them with someone while I was playing and this is a huge distraction and it's something that can be done later, not while you're playing.
I've recently had a couple of coaching sessions my backer set up. The first session started out a bit rocky. My ego got in the way and I got overly sensitive about a couple of things he said. I'm not good at not speaking my mind so unfortunately I felt the need to say something. At first I thought this was a huge mistake and afterwards I felt terrible for saying anything, after-all my backer was kind enough and cared enough to set this up and the coach was good enough to do the sessions with me. I left him a message on Skype to apologize yet one more time for what I had said. Today when I got online I had a scathing message from him that definitely put me in place. I went through various stages of processing this. Slightly angry, very hurt and then just plain depressed then to the realization that he was right. Harsh realizations are just that, harsh.
I've always liked to think I didn't have ego problems so to be told my ego was a problem and that I think that I'm a better player than I actually am was not an easy thing to hear. He didn't exactly stop there either, I was pretty much raked over the coals but it was honestly stuff I needed to hear. So bottom-line I'm glad I said what I said and I'm glad that I had to suffer through the berating I took because it brought me down a quite a few pegs and brought me back to reality.
We spent some time talking more today and finished the hand history session we started last night and I learned a lot. He made some technical game improvement suggestions but mostly mental game and attitude things. I really think these things are going to help me with my game quite a bit. Just the harsh realization of where I really am with my game is so important. I know I said it in the above linked blog but I don't think I believed it. I think my ego still wanted to believe I was better than that. I think at the time I wrote that blog I did believe it but the devil on my shoulder kept trying to convince me I was better than that. So even though at the time of writing that blog I'd accepted it, as the Baptist here in the south say "I back slid".
So as of now I'm totally sticking with mid-stakes except for the occasional satted into Sunday major and work hard to start actually crushing those stakes and stop blaming all my problems on runbad. I'm going to stop putting the cart before the horse by trying to play games I'm not ready to be playing. I'm turning off anything that can be a distraction and I'm just going to play. That even includes the "I'm a the final table of so so" brags and letting people rail me on Teamviewer etc. And absolutely zero chatting on Skype or the phone or anything else while any game is running. It's time to get serious and stop letting distractions, stress or any outside issues cause me to make unnecessary mistakes.
The guy I got the coaching from told me when I sit down to play look at everything as a choice, a choice to play, a choice to win, a choice to play my A game, a choice to focus and a choice to make the best possible decisions. This is what I'm going to do, it is all I can do if I want to win at this game.
Was listening to the Doors and heard this song. How perfect is this for these damn long ass poker downswings? "I've been down so very long that looks like up to me! Why don't one of you people come on and set me free? Won't you break the lock and key?" How many of us can say we've felt this way on more than one occasion? I know I can. I'm on one of those now and it seems like it will never end. I end most nights wondering why I even bothered to play. Yet I wake up the next morning and can't wait to start the abuse again. I'm starting to truly believe I may indeed be totally and completely bat shit crazy. You know what they say the meaning of insane is? Doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. If that's true then I am without a single doubt BAT SHIT CRAZY!
There are so many factors though; poker is truly tougher than ever but for US players the re-entries have turned the game of poker into more of a gamble than a game of skill. Hands one would never 4 bet jam now go flying into the middle 'cause, what the hell they can just re-enter. Bluffing doesn't work nearly as often as it should because again, so what if my 2nd pair is no good I can just re-enter. It comes down to who can afford to re-enter the most more than who's better at the game. There is a big argument that re-entries increase variance for weaker players but not for skilled players, that it gives skilled players a greater advantage. This is true, it does and well rolled skilled players have an even bigger advantage since they can re-enter as often as necessary, even though it kills their ROI. Overall though, skilled or not skilled, re-entries definitely increase variance. I truly believe this is why Bovada is growing so much and why it's so soft. Fish go broke much faster with re-entries, especially on Merge where the payout structure is so top heavy. It's a bit better on Winning: the late registration/re-entry period isn't as long and the payout structure is flatter allowing fish to cash more often and take longer to go broke. Also regs get tired of dealing with this too and many of them are moving a large portion of their play over to Bovada. Anyway just heard this song and got inspired to write about this. Time for up to feel like up but I've forgotten what up feels like. Onward and upward you crazy online poker players! Good luck with your Sunday grind.
We all know there are various names for different types of poker players (which of course I'll go over) but I think I've found a new name for one type, Mud shhhhh shhhhh sharrrrk.... Fish: New player who is generally clueless and doesn't think about anything except the two cards in his hand. He has no concept of how to hand read or really figure out much about reading the board. He loves to see flops. Most of your better players don't really mean it in a derogatory way when they refer to someone as a fish. They just mean this is a clueless player who knows little about the game. Donk (or Donkey): A donk doesn't really know a lot more than a fish but they generally think they are better players than they are. They've likely learned a little about the game and occasionally think about what cards you might be holding. Of course they never think what you're holding is better than what they're holding because they always "put" you on that hand that is worst than theirs. If they could manage to think you had a better hand that would mean they would have to fold after putting money in the pot and they just aren't quite capable of this yet. One thing to note, only donks use the word donk. I almost never hear a good player call anyone a donk. If you are calling people donks or donkeys guess what, you probably are one. Droolers: (also gimp or moron) Although these terms aren't specific to poker they are very frequently uses to refer to certain types of poker players. Whereas everyone starts out as fish, these types will always be fish. They lack the mental capacity to ever get better. They're not necessarily brain challenged, they are just either too ignorant or too lazy to bother with getting better. In defense of some of them, they are just playing to have a good time and gamble it up. Regs: Regs (meaning regulars of course) get broken down into a few categories: The bad reg: They play a lot have some concept of the game and maybe occasionally think past level two but they rarely play well and many of them never get much better at the game. The good thing about them verses the donk and fish is they will occasionally think on a deep enough level to fold once in in while. The meh reg: He's a little better than the bad reg and he wins more but no one would go so far as to call him decent or good. He'll probably never make it to the decent level because he just doesn't care enough. He's learned what he knows by osmosis and through playing a decent amount but he never puts in the effort to work on his game. The decent reg: Most decent regs will eventually become good regs. They work on their game and they try hard to improve. They often make the correct play and have a decent understanding of the game and strategy. Often they are only a few steps away from becoming a good reg, many of them even play a pretty respectable game. They're just usually still playing too tight late game or not 3 betting or raising in enough spots and they're still putting too much emphasis on the cards and their post flop game isn't as good as it needs to be. Decent regs are generally fairly profitable players for the most part but are often hurt more by downswings than good regs. The good reg: These are the higher level players who understand the game in depth and work hard to continue to improve. They are generally someone you want to avoid at the table. They are creative and tricky and generally very aggressive. The Shark: Pretty much the good reg or the sicko (see below) The sicko: These are usually the loose aggressive players. They are everything the good reg is with the addition of well calculated aggression and nerve to play just about any hand from any position. They have unreal post flop skills and because they play so many hands you never know what they have. These guys can make your life totally miserable at the table. If they 3 bet you and you 4 bet them don't be surprised when they five bet jam on you with 79s or some other way less than premium hand. You will find there is a thin line between a sicko and fish and sometimes if you don't have a lot of history with them it's hard to tell the difference. Then there is... The MudShark: (yeah, yeah I love Frank Zappa) I was listening to this song the other night and it dawned on me that this is the perfect name for this other type of player. This guy is far from a good reg or a sicko, most of them probably wouldn't even make it into the decent reg category but by God they think they are the best thing to hit poker since cards got color. They've read all the books, watched all the videos and absorbed more knowledge than even John Nash could process but they've hardly played. Many play occasionally online, the occasional home game and a few live tournaments throughout the year but they truly believe they're better than all the guys with years of experience and more games/hands behind them than you can count. God forbid if one of these guys luckboxes a big win since that only confirms what he already knows, that he's the best and the very best. He could outplay Phil Ivey if given the opportunity. I mean after all it's a known fact Phil Ivey really doesn't know much about ICM, right? These guys get on poker forums and post their opinions on a hands and even though 10 or 20 other well accomplished players totally and completely disagree with them they continue to argue their point (usually quoting the well known writings by the top guys like Harrington or Doyle Brunson). They post all these poker software findings and half of what they say makes no sense. The ranges they use for opponents are outrageously off (generally way too tight) but by God the software says they're right and they're sticking by it. They're also very quick to tell you how they are sure they are a much better player than you are. You see these guy show up on forums, make asses of themselves, call other and better players bad and disappear pretty fast. Either because they became so obnoxious the mods banned them or they decided not to waste their precious time and vast knowledge on the dumb lowly people on the forum. Don't confuse these guys with trolls, these guys are a different breed and I think mudshark is the perfect name for them because with their incessant desire to believe they know everything and the fact that they study a zillion times more than they play, they will never become a real shark and always just stay bogged down in their muddy but superior brain. So everyone let's toast to the MUDSHARK since for every one of them that leaves the forums a new one will pop up to take their place.
I think there is one recurring theme among poker players, everyone thinks they are better than they are. They think they are good enough to beat the next stakes and beat all the sick regs out there. They think because a few times they did beat them that makes them good enough to do it consistently. If you saw Rounders you remember how Mike beats Johnny Chan so he takes his entire roll and loses it all to TeddyKGB. Unfortunately this is a very common theme in the game.
Well I have some bad news for you, you are likely not as good as you think you are. That even goes for the best out there I would imagine. Ego and the desire to move up in stakes gets the best of us all. We all want those big scores and the high stakes are where those scores are.
Motivation to move up is very important and very necessary to make it to the higher levels in any field but being honest with yourself about when you're ready is the most important part of making the upward move successfully.
A month or so ago I asked a poker friend what he thought of my game and he told me I could crush the low stakes and probably do okay in the mid-stakes. I was pretty devastated by this comment but it was the best thing I could have heard. Despite a prolonged bout of what I blamed on run-bad I still thought I was good enough to beat the better players at the higher stakes. I'm not, tough to admit but I'm just not. Sometimes maybe when I'm playing my A game and running great I can beat them but not on a day to day consistent basis because they are better players than I am. They have more skill and more experience. I can beat mid-stakes tournaments at this point and if I'm playing my best and running decent I can beat them on a consistent basis. I could crush low stakes if I just had more patience.
Right now that's where I am and realizing that and excepting it has been like an epiphany for me. I'm really okay with that too because now that I understand why I'm not ready to consistently beat higher stakes and now I can play so much better at mid-stakes and work on the things I need to work on to get to the higher levels and I will get there! I just have to be patient and work hard and it will happen.
Poker is a tough game that takes a strong mental attitude and a ridiculous amount of perseverance. I've seen so many people quit because they couldn't handle the swings. I've threatened to quit a few times myself but winners never quit. I truly think a lot of people quit because they move up before they are anywhere near ready and experience the unavoidable failure and instead of realizing that they just need to move back down they just give up.
Since this "epiphany" this week has been the best in a long time. I've made 6 final tables and had two 2nd and one 3rd place finish for $3452 in winnings (not as good as it sounds, I was ass deep in makeup but close to the black now). I'm feeling so much better about my game and playing so much better. I've gotten back to the play that I need to be playing. I take my time and think about every decision, or at least try to. I still have some mental game issues to work on and I need a good bit of work on my post flop play.
A big thanks to my backer who has been a world of help. He's really helped me see where my mistakes were and how to fix them and how to get my mental issues straightened out. It's great having a backer who's willing to spend time helping me and who plays MTTs himself. I still miss my old backer, he was a great guy who I like a lot but this situation is so much better for me at this point.
I'm taking my one time for this whole year, it must work cause look how it's going :D Hopefully that long awaited very elusive five figure score is right around the corner and a circuit ring would be really sweet too.
Here's to a great 2014 for everyone!!! Happy and prosperous New Year!
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