Deep down I knew that the lovely month of August would, in a sinister and twisted way, be a recipe for disaster. Starting the month on the $5.50 double up sit'n'goes, quickly escalating my bankroll in order to upgrade to the $11 and then $22 in rapid sucession... too good to be true. And well, the bigger they are, the harder they fall right? My fall wasn't pretty.
I didn't really blow up my entire bankroll, thanks to rakeback, but I got dead close. I displayed every definition of tilt, and that has impacted my life quite a lot. While I'm not out to become a poker professional, at least not overtly so, the truth is that quitting my job and looking for other prospects as an entrepeneur left me with basically no steady income for the time being. Having a first rakeback-enhanced month play out beautifully made me believe that this could indeed become a source of income.
It is not. Not for now, anyway. I was probably riding the good side of variance for most of August and I just didn't think for a second that the reason I was running so well could be that. Then it all went beserk and I got really confused as for the source of it all, reacting really bad to all the bad beats I was taking. What I was also noticing but could hardly believe was that I wasn't playing my best game anymore. Whatever that is.
To make a long story short, fast forward to present time, mid October 2010, and how I perceive this huge downswing from the other side. One thing that is clear to me is how letting yourself go on tilt makes your downswing not only card-related but also psychologically related. Basically, what I mean by this is the simple truth that the worse off your are mentally, the crappier your game will be. Meaning that while you should be near your A-game to really try and turn your "luck" around, you are actually playing some sort of B or Z-game. Bad beats turn into bad decisions and that's a negative loop that is REALLY hard to break out of.
Anyway, I'm sure it is important to notice every mistake you make, admit all those and hopefully learn with them. We'll always make mistakes, no matter how good (or bad) we are, the difference is only how often you make those dreaded mistakes. In the long run, that reflects directly on how profitable you are and that's not something a bad beat (or a succession of those in a single session) will ever deny.
So when things derailed, I decided to look elsewhere for other game structures and I pretty much did it all. I played cash games, I played regular sits, I played heads-up SnGs (something that I will still pursue with a lot of interest), I played MTTs hoping to hit big. Nothing worked because my mind wasn't right. It probably still isn't but now I got to the point of admittance and looking to change things around. So this whole post could probably be summed up in one phrase which will become my mantra:
IN POKER, DO NOT BE RESULTS-ORIENTED
Something we often fail to understand is that poker is such a beautiful game that skill, luck and results usually do NOT go hand-in-hand. This basically means that you don't win (or cash) every time you play your best game and the inverse is also true, accounting for all the donks who still haven't figured out how bad they really are because they ran hot for a while and cashed a couple of times. Being "results-oriented" means that whatever results you obtain over a period of time or in a single tournament/session are the barometer of how you feel about it. You win, you feel great and energized, ready for the next tourney, sometimes infatuated to the point of thinking you really crush at this game. You lose, you feel like shit because you probably went out with a huge sick sick sick beat, some donkey sent you to the rail after hitting his two-outer on the river after calling pre-flop and two streets of value with 75 offsuit.
But wait a second. How well did you play that hand? How well did you play every hand against that particular donkey? In fact, how well did you play every hand in that whole tournament? How well have you playing these past few weeks as a whole? Come to think of it...
But wait a second. How well did you play that hand? How well did you play every hand against that particular donkey? In fact, how well did you play every hand in that whole tournament? How well have you playing these past few weeks as a whole? Come to think of it...
HOW MANY GOOD DECISIONS HAVE YOU MADE LATELY?
It all boils down to this: if you haven't been near or at the top of your game, you cannot complain about a bad beat ruining it all for you. And besides, bad beats happen and either nothing is rigged or everything is rigged. Either way, gotta learn to live with it. And the better you live around bad beats and donkfests, the better you'll be in the long run. And that's where you want to do great: in the long run. Only by forgetting about results and focusing entirely on how well you play and how many "best decisions" you are making, can you be profitable and evolve as a poker player. Couple that with a lot of positive thinking and... results will then come naturally. So many (successful) people have said all this I'm saying, that the whole world cannot be wrong, really.
So I'm back where I started right after I got my rakeback deal: at the $5.50 double up sit'n'goes. It is true that where I play the field has definitely evolved, meaning the fish/shark ratio is becoming less and less favorable. But it's even more true that when my downswing began and all hell broke loose, I started playing awfully bad, never looking even to the mid-term. I got entirely too busy going crazy over the bad beats I was receiving.
I'm doing the utmost to cease being results-oriented not only in terms of each tourney, but also in terms of each session, each day, each week, even each month. Results are obviously important but in this particular game they are only really important in the (very) long run. And that kind of results will certainly come naturally if I play the closest I can to my A-game every tourney, every session, every day, every week, every month. Only peace of mind, study and reflection over past mistakes can help me achieve that.
It would be pretty to say that after this huge downswing I've arrived a better player on the other side. I won't say that, as I have no reason to believe that is already the case. But what I do believe is that I definitely walked the path necessary to become a better player from now on.
It all boils down to this: if you haven't been near or at the top of your game, you cannot complain about a bad beat ruining it all for you. And besides, bad beats happen and either nothing is rigged or everything is rigged. Either way, gotta learn to live with it. And the better you live around bad beats and donkfests, the better you'll be in the long run. And that's where you want to do great: in the long run. Only by forgetting about results and focusing entirely on how well you play and how many "best decisions" you are making, can you be profitable and evolve as a poker player. Couple that with a lot of positive thinking and... results will then come naturally. So many (successful) people have said all this I'm saying, that the whole world cannot be wrong, really.
So I'm back where I started right after I got my rakeback deal: at the $5.50 double up sit'n'goes. It is true that where I play the field has definitely evolved, meaning the fish/shark ratio is becoming less and less favorable. But it's even more true that when my downswing began and all hell broke loose, I started playing awfully bad, never looking even to the mid-term. I got entirely too busy going crazy over the bad beats I was receiving.
I'm doing the utmost to cease being results-oriented not only in terms of each tourney, but also in terms of each session, each day, each week, even each month. Results are obviously important but in this particular game they are only really important in the (very) long run. And that kind of results will certainly come naturally if I play the closest I can to my A-game every tourney, every session, every day, every week, every month. Only peace of mind, study and reflection over past mistakes can help me achieve that.
It would be pretty to say that after this huge downswing I've arrived a better player on the other side. I won't say that, as I have no reason to believe that is already the case. But what I do believe is that I definitely walked the path necessary to become a better player from now on.
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