I Have Run Out

Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success.
Brian Adams

I know it seems I have been talking a lot lately about patience in your game. Waiting for the right opportunity and taking advantage. Most of it stems from me coming to the realization that I am losing mine.

"Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure" - That discribes a lot of my game right now. I have a very lackluster attitude towards playing and can't keep the intensity up. I'm pushing hands to hard and just not picking the right spots.

I read in a post or article or something about online players see twice as many hands as live players so that equates to playing twice as long. He goes on to explain that 1 year online play would equal 2 years of live play and so on. I have been playing full time now for 10 months. So, extrapulating that out using the above information means almost two years worth of poker with no extended break. That's not counting the reading, studying, web site, blog and other poker related time I have spent.

Iggy as well as others have written about the drudgery of poker for a living. Thats what it really is to me right now, a drudgery. I know have a luxury though that I didn't have before. That is money coming in (good money) from my wife going back to work. So it is almost time for an extended break. I have 270 points left to get from the last Poker Stars reload and then I will stop for a while. Atleast till school for the kids starts back up.

I have ordered two more books: Internet Poker by Lou Krieger (Poker Stars Points to good use?) and the H/L Split Poker book by Ray Zee. Good reading for my hiatus. Harrington on Holdem II is on that list also but will have to wait a while. Can't go TOTALLY pokerless....that would be bad :) .

I like to set goals for myself and I beleive when I come back in a couple weeks I will set some new ones. This time though it will include many more breaks away from poker than before. I am not down on poker full time. I would still recommend it to anyone in the right situation. Just like anything you do for the first time, I need to tweek the overall operation and adjust for some more quality time away from the tables as well.


Till Next Time!

One of those Nights

Bad Beats - A few. Suck Outs - A Few.

Main problem - Me! I played like crap!

Making calls I shouldn't, betting when I knew they hit their draws, overly aggressive and impatient. That about covers it. Worst night I have played in a long time. Looking back there are calls and bets that I made I can't explain. Not sure where my head was.

The humbling feeling of poker. 3 days of finishing up, wiped out in 3 hours. I wish I could go on and on about this suck out and that unreal call and how lucky this player was, but I really can't. I lost that money mainly through stupid play.

It upset me a lot last night. I thought I was beyond making some of the major mistakes I made. (Betting big on the turn with a set when the straight hit) Then I realized that it was OK. All players of all professions have bad nights.

Arguably the best hitter in baseball, Ted Williams, FAILED to hit a baseball 6 out of 10 times. A part of baseball lore, a legend, Hall of Famer, had a 40% success rate. In today’s market he would be a millionaire many times over. As history tells us though, a fierce competitor, he came to play.

I have said this many times, people play poker for different reasons, but to play to win, you have to be mentally in the game and "come to play". Though I do not have any statistics, I would wager a 40% success rate would win you a lot of money.

During the time my kids were in school, I had a set time to play and was prepared to sit during that time and play poker. Though I didn't do anything specific, I knew I was playing between these times and I was mentally ready to go. Lately, I believe a lot of my problems are stemming from not being totally committed to playing poker and trying to "fit it in".

School here starts back Sept. 4th and will be back on a regular program again. Till then I guess I have to live with the "fit it in" part or cut down on the play.

Till Next Time!

What a Few Days!

Since I last posted, I tried to update 4Flush and crashed my database. OOPS! After many frustrating tries at re-installing the back up files, I always got 99% of the site back up and one button that wouldn't work. Of course it was the button that let me post to the site! So I ended up re-vamping the whole thing and added some new catorgories and updating the menu. 4 days later and I am all done and to be honest, very pleased with the new look. Well, not exactly new LOOK, but new features and overall flow of the site.

Anyway, didn't get to play much poker obviously but did play a little PLO8 at Stars. It hit me one of the big differences between Holdem and O8. I guess I knew it all along in a way but it just crystalized over the weekend.

There are more gamblers in PLO8 than players. There are more people willing to risk A LOT of money that their draw will hit (especially low draws). I am new to this game and maybe that is just the nature of pot limit H/L games but I do find that aspect intriguing. I have played some NL this summer and even though I experience some of the same gambling attitude it was not as wide spread.

I have seen 8 $100+ pots this week at .25/.50 PL Omaha H/L on Poker Stars and the biggest one ($148) Sunday night. Four people putting in an average of $37 a piece! ONE guy swept it. In a high/Low split game and $148 pot you would guess there would be a split! At least quartered. This guy had the best high and nut low and NOBODY WOULD FOLD! The three other "players" were all on draws.

I gasped out loud. Though I understand the gambling mentality and actually like to play against them (if they are not runnung hot). It is still hard for me to grasp that kind of thinking. We all play poker for different reasons. I guess I ran into a few that play for the big score and adrenaline rush. (Yes, as a side note......tonight that payed off for me.)

So, with the site back up and running and all is back to normal in my cyber world, it will be back to playing Monday.

Till Next Time!