Holiday Tommorrow

Friday, May 11, 2007

24 hours from now I'll probably be 20,000ft above the earth, roughly over the straights of Gibraltar and steaming my way at 500-odd mph towards Gran Canaria. You'd think I'd be on a high, but you'd be wrong. I'm on an all time low and there is one fundamental reason for that. Poker.

The game really is kicking me from every angle over and over again. I've been on bad runs before and I've been down on my luck before, but each time I've pushed through it and each time I've tried really hard to learn and improve as a player. I finally feel like I've made a breakthrough and got the profit cogs turning as my win rate seems to creep beyond a painful grind something more substantial and then I'm force fed a horrific bad run that I just can't recover from. So it's back to the books. More reading, more soul searching, more hand analysis, more asking for advice…and more food and masturbation based stress relief ;o) Yet still the recovery is not forthcoming; still the results are not there.

I've tried to break away from the 'grind' strategy and have taken some inspiration from Ed Hollis (88%Concentration) by looking to rush up the levels by buying in short on tables with players that have a specific weakness(es) which I've identified. All four times I've attempted this I've failed to move my 50bb investment up to even a full stack. First time AA was done by AK (king high flop), second time AA done by a open-ended draw on the flop, the third time was TPTK by a set and tonight I raised a 50bb stack from the button holding KQ and took a queen high flop vs the SB who called pre-flop with AQ. Perhaps I could have escaped from that one but I think given the implications of my middle stack its pretty hard.

I really can't stress how much Ed frustrates me. I love and hate him in near equal measure! I love his attitude, his self-belief, his honesty and his balls but hate the fact that despite being handed some pretty big fiscal rewards not once, not twice but three times he has never realised what he's got when there are other guys of equal or greater poker talent out there struggling to get any break at all.

[sigh]

Right now I'm looking at 'all NL hands' across all levels in pokertracker. I've knocked out near 300 hours on top of my 9-5 job, my life and the many months of decoration I've been undertaking. I've made $8.54 per hour!!! (2.07ptbb/100). I'm pretty sure the guy that works the drive-through hatch in McDonalds makes more than that. He has no real stress, no real responsibility, may catch a nice down blouse or up-skirt when some Saxo-bint pulls up and he probably gets a free burger at the end of his shift! Camel-toe and a burger for more than $8.54 an hour – I'm the dafty in this equation! I do find myself sitting here wondering what the hell I'm doing and I guess that's a question I'll ask a lot of myself when I'm on holiday.

I guess two key factors keep me playing poker:

1. I'm still actually winning even though my rate really doesn't reflect my effort or (IMHO) my skill.

2. I set out at the start of my blog to see if I could average $50 per hour from poker allowing me to play full-time for a useful sum of money per annum. I still don't know if that's something I can or cannot do and I intend to keep playing until I answer that question.

At the time of writing my bankroll is £2,646 give or take a few. I haven't taken a single penny from poker in over a year nor benefited from it in anyway. I derive very little enjoyment from playing the game so have played well over 300 hours for free just trying to answer that question above. Pretty sick! I'd be confident 95% of the population would definitely have given up by now - hopefully my drive to learn, improve and battle adversity will bring me success.

For 9 days, splats is offline :)