Pretty bad week

This last few days have been pretty amazing poker wise - I've been playing almost exclusively 2/4 - some 3/6, and one 5/10 session chasing a fish - and I'm running around $11k under EV. Its pretty amazing though, I'm in a better mood about life and poker in the last few days than I have been for a while. I do wish that things would pick up so I could start making money, but I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and putting in good volume

Horrible session

I had a horrible session today, losing like 10 buyins in 2k hands, but I feel really good about it - overall I feel I played good - although I did make mistakes - but I identified them and didnt give myself a bad time about them - instead I learned from them. I'm SUPER happy that I'm not annoyed or fed up or life tilted about it. Weird to be posting about being happy to have had a big losing session, but there you go

Other news, in the gym 3 times this week, feels really good. Fucking Swine Flu pandemic in Buenos Aires has shutdown the city for 2 days this week, so I cant go to the gym yesterday or today which is frustrating. Not much else to report

1st week of July

So the 20k hands of 2/4 and 3/6 went pretty well..I was happy with my game, played well overall without many problems, I think my WR overall for that sample was 8 bb which is pretty good. Then I went and played 5/10 today and quit after 56 hands when I broke my keyboard. It started badly - first hand I lost a flip in a 3bet pot - literally first hand back at 5/10 - and my attitude before i got it all in was along the lines of " I know I'm going to lose this.." - I just feel the run bad coming. Then I played another hand where I stationed it hugely in a really bad spot, just because the villain had loose/very aggressive stats over a small sample - I made a very bad turn call vs a pot bet on a paired board with TPTK in a spot where I simply cant call because of a bunch of reasons, but I stationed it up for reasons I cant define too welll...maybe I wanted to feel more sorry for myself by getting "coolered", or maybe I didnt want the "fish" to bluff me, or I wanted to try and make a heroic call. I also told myself I would fold the river but as soon as he 1/2 potted it [which is worse for trying to make a hero call] I insta clicked call. Then I played another pot all in with AA in a very marignal spot in a 3 bet pot, but a hand I felt I played fine, but it just annoyed me losing a third stack in 50 hands as SOON as I had moved back up, that I just snapped and fucked my keyboard on the floor. Pretty stupid overall, no real excuses.

I feel really emo, I feel sometimes as If I'm not cut out for being a professional poker player - obviously technically I am - in terms of hand reading, bet sizing, hand selection, etc etc..all the elements of understanding poker I feel I am very strong, but in terms of actually BEING a poker professional, I often feel as If I'm not cut out for it. My last year of poker has not been a successful one at all, and I feel as If I'm stuck in the mud. I'm not achieving alot of the things I feel I should be achieving in life, and I'm also regretting [in a very results orientated way] the fact that I didnt finish University.

I'm too lazy about alot of things, a good example being the work I do with Jared. I've been working with him for several months now, and alot of the problems we go over in our sessions are the same old problems that I had when I started work with him - and he suggests some of the same solutions - that I said I would try and implement way back when, and just failed to do out of apathy of laziness. I'm paying this guy alot of money for his advice, taking it, and then not implementing it. Its just stupid.

Honestly, this is a strong thing to say, and I'm not sure how I feel about saying it on a public blog spot, but sometimes I really hate myself - because I feel like I should be so much more successful a person at this stage In my life than I am. I want so many things out of life, in terms of material wealth, and I'm not getting anywhere near achieving these goals at this rate and it really disappoints me. My own lack of success really grates at me. And maybe its stupid, and I expect too much of myself - my friends always tell me what a great life I have - and on the surface, its obviously true, alot of things about my life are good. But still, despite it all, I'm often just not happy - and the cause of my unhappiness is almost invariably poker [although sometimes girl problems intervene ;o)]

But Yeah, seriously, I feel pretty dumb talking about all this, also in large part because in the past I've said all the same things - I really need to knuckle down and work harder, stop being so lazy, approach poker better, so on and so forth. But now I really think, [REALLY REALLY] think that I change my attitude to stop poker from affecting my emotions so badly. I mean, the alternative to this, is to simply quit poker. I dont really see that as a viable option, because I like the freedom and benefits poker affords me, so all I'm left with is working hard on all the issues I have regarding poker, and detaching all emotion from it.

But anyway, to this end, I'm going to do a few things. Firstly, and maybe most importantly, I'm going to stay at 2/4 and 3/6 for the month of July to begin with. Its just so much easier and stress free grinding these games - they are more plentiful, the regs are much weaker, there are more weak spots and they are weaker overall, and its much less stress on me for vairous reasons. The money means less, and I think staying at this level will give me more room to try and work on other things. I'm going to take all the advice Jared gives me, and I'm going to try and really implement it. In the long term, the most important thing from poker is money. But in the short term, I'm going to try and concentrate more on improving my approach to poker, perhaps to the detriment of putting in as many hands or playing as many tables. One of the main reasons that I struggle to do some of the things I want to do - such as meditation before sessions, or a brief warmup, is because when I decide I want to play a session I want to play Now, and i just waitlist tables and start playing, ignoring all the things I feel I should do to approach the session better. So in the nexxt month I'm going to really concentrate on the things associated to my game, and on trying to detach emotion.

Anyway, god, that was a long rant. I really hope this takes.

June

So....June was another pretty shitty month. After the robbery and all the associated things...being injured, having to move, etc etc. I'm not going to harp on about it too much. I didnt play too much poker, but what I did play went very badly. I felt I played pretty well though, and my game is pretty strong. Not being able to exercise properly and do yoga because of my injuries was very annoying. Towards the end of the month I got a flu and stomach bug to top things off

Anyway, June is over, and I'm looking forward to the second half of the year. I'm currently playing 2/4 and 3/6 for 20k hands to try and get some perspective and confidence back. 50k hands for July is my main poker goal, at 2-4-5/10, and some higher shots if I do well in the first part of the month. I have alot of non poker goals for the month that I'm not going to detail.

Update

So all in all the last 5 or 6 weeks have been the worst of my life, for a variety of reasons, not all of which I'll go into on here. After the robbery we moved into a temporary place for 2 weeks and now we are in our brand new awesome apartment - its huge - 250 sqm with more space than we know what to do with.

But yeah, in the 2 weeks in the temporary place, I ran $22k under Ev all at 5/10 which was just sickening after what had just happened. I dont like people moaning about running bad, and I try not to, but please...Then a few days ago I caught a fucking flu, had bad chills and a killer cough. I'm still sick but recovering pretty well.

Anyway, I havent been doing a huge amount last while apart from recovering and sorting out new apartment and associated things. My foot is almost totally better, so going to start Jogging again soon which I cant wait for. My hand is still a bit fucked, I think lifting is a good few weeks away which is majorly annoying. I didnt play that much poker - maybe 4/5 k hands in the temporary place. Its hard to grind when I'm both sick and using my weaker hand for the mouse, so my sessions have been noticeably shorter. Starting to get back into a more regular rhythm though.

Not much else to report - everything got thrown out of kilter by what happened, so just trying to get back into things - Spanish, Yoga, Gym [soon], coaching sessions, and so on.

Thanks to everyone for their comments re the robbery.

Out of action

Here is a copy of the email I sent to some friends on Thursday.

So, long story short because my hand is in a cast and its difficult to type, 3 guys broke into our house Tuesday night, climbed thru the Window of my friends room while he was in bed with his girlfriend. They were high as fuck on coke and had big ass knives. I woke up hearing wierd voices and fucking retardedly walked out to see what was going on and walked into the middle of thsi going on. They herded us into my room and took a bunch of my money, and they also took my major sign of affluence, my TAG ;( One guy "kept watch" on us while the others searched the house and then Daniel shoved the guy over and said run, so we all booked it. I legged it towards our front gate which has bg fucking spikes on it and totally buggered my hand climbing over it. Have a v deep cut in my hand and my foot is a bit fucked, but overall I and everyone else are ok. Called the police who wree completley fuckin unhelpful, so we arent even bothering to make a complaint, Argentine police dont give a fuck about foreigners.

The worst thing is we were definitely deliberately targeeted, our house is pretty non descript and no way to see the window the climbed in from the steret. They knew we were rich foreigners and thought we had a shitload of cash in the house. " give us all your money or we'll kill you" etc. Someone who worked for us definitely set them up on us. we have a lot of ppl coming thru house so imposs to know who. weve already moved out, couldnt feel safe there anymore.

Thing's are going..

Still grinding a decent amount, pace kind of fell off from the start of the month but thats only to be expected. Taking some higher shots this month has gone really badly, running way below ev at 25/50 and 50/100, but whatever. Happy with my game, doing well grinding 3/6 and 5/10, and a bit of 10/20. Progressing and learning, so things are good. Working hard at the gym, started back to Spanish which I'm happy about and so on.

Was my birthday on Wednesday, had an Asado [barbecue] and went out afterwards in what was a fairly messy but enjoyable night. Not much else to report, just going to keep on doing what I'm doing