Starting to wonder...
To say this month isn't going according to plan would basically be the understatement of the year. I've already put in over 26,000 hands and I'm in the red to the tune of about $7000. It seems like everytime I turn around I'm creating a blog entry about how badly I run, and I'm really getting sick of it. I'm sick of hearing myself bitch, I'm sick of hearing myself complain, sick of sending the latest bad beat hand history to friends on instant messenger, sick of making mistakes, sick of letting my failures at the poker table spill into my personal life... but how can it not?I've set out to become the best poker player I can be. I feel like I've done all the things necessary to become successful at this game yet it seems to always be just out of reach. I've always said that I've worked way harder at poker than I ever did at programming...and I don't regret it. The upward potential of poker, at this stage of my life, is way higher than it is being a code monkey. Why is it that I'm not able to transform this hard work and dedication into the profits I feel like I deserve?
Funny thing, that word 'potential'. My dad being a college football coach hates the word 'potential' and has a classic quote in the newspaper about it. Dad said, "And potential... I hate potential. Potential is unused production. We need to produce."
I'm trying like hell to produce, but in for the past several weeks I can't seem to do anything but get sucked out on or get setup. Of course I've misplayed some hands, and I send nearly all of my questionable hands to someone else to get their opinions. This is the point in the "i run bad" blog where I try to figure out what I do next in order to make it better. I'm all out of ideas. Sure I can go back to the well to try suggestions I give others, or I've given myself, but ultimately I truly believe it just boils down to starting to run better and having my hands hold up...
But if I may do some self reflection and analysis, I truly believe one of the reasons my bad run has persisted as long as it has is because I've tightened up. Many offer tightening up as a good solution to slow the bleeding, but I feel like I've tightened up too much postflop. I'm not pulling the trigger when I sense weakness like I used to...at least not with the same frequency. I don't think I'm stealing enough pots and those stolen pots are often what helps to slow the bleeding (or loss of a limb, as the case may be) from the latest beat or setup. It's tough though. It's tough to pull the trigger when the last two times you've shoved in a stack on a bluff you run into the nuts...and at the time you need it most, it's tough to separate the results of a hand from the long run EV.
Reading back through this article on my pop, I came across another one of his quotes that I think applies to poker as well. Hell, he even 'sounds' like a coach based on his choice of words:
"You've got to have great physical and mental toughness. You can't be broken. You've got to have great brains. You've got to have brains enough to recognize in certain formations only certain things can happen to you."
It's true in poker too. Of course without the physical part, but the rest definitely applies. The part about mental toughness and not being broken goes without saying. It's easy to see how this applies. Honestly I feel like I'm being broken with every misplayed hand or bad beat, and that's certainly part of the problem. Great brains. No shit. This isn't a game where joe shit the rag man can sit down and hang with the students of the game. It's a battle of wits. "You've got to have brains enough to recognize in certain formations only certain things can happen to you." Sound familiar? It's the culimation of all things poker. The board texture, the preflop and postflop actions, the information you have about this player. It's the story they're telling and it's forming into a range of hands and you have to be able to recognize it and know how to respond accordingly.
It's pretty amazing that after 26 years, from across the country, through an article written over a year ago, on a blog he doesn't even know exists - my dad has been able to teach me something about a game he's never even played.
I won't be broken.
Aaron
posted by WiltOnTilt at 1:41 AM
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