I'v enever felt quite like this before. I almost acively want to do anything other than play poker. Not ideal when it is your occupation. I have no idea how to fix this as a winning session doesn't make me feel that much better and a losing one makes me feel that much worse. I think I'm going to take some more time completely away and see how I feel over the coming days. Not sure what I'll do with my time but anything will be better than playing.
Don't know what I want to play anymore when I am at the tables and am unconvinced by my ability at all forms of poker at the current time. I don't really know what else to say as my motivation has completely gone...
Steve
Thursday 31 January 2008
Wednesday 30 January 2008
Can't handle it
That's how I feel. I don't know if I can continue to do this as my supposed living. I am a horrible horrible run of fortune and I'm really questionning my own ability massively right now. Sadly this is coupled with a deep questionning of whether I even want to do this any more. I start well after a week off and win $900 I've dropped $1400 over the past two days through some bad luck some bad play and it hurts.
It hurts really rather deeply and I seem to have lost my joy for the game entirely. Playing doesn't give me any pleasure, I don't really enjoy winning any more and I absolutely detest losing. This hurts!
I've had a really productive day and felt good and simply through playing I've managed to remove my previously upbeat temperment. This is not good. I know I can turn this around but I'm not even sure I want to any more - if I continue doing badly then I quit and go back to working for a living, at least that way I have more stability in my life even if the prospect does not thrill me.
When I started this is was fun, it was exhilerating and it was potentially lucrative. The first two of these have flown out of the window never to be seen again!. I have never ever had to try at anything in my life, academia was easy, job - easy, interviews, mortgage, day to day life - easy.
Poker fitted into this category as well when I had a job, I played, I won consistently over a very long period and life was good. It's different now and I'm not sure I like it very much.
Steve
It hurts really rather deeply and I seem to have lost my joy for the game entirely. Playing doesn't give me any pleasure, I don't really enjoy winning any more and I absolutely detest losing. This hurts!
I've had a really productive day and felt good and simply through playing I've managed to remove my previously upbeat temperment. This is not good. I know I can turn this around but I'm not even sure I want to any more - if I continue doing badly then I quit and go back to working for a living, at least that way I have more stability in my life even if the prospect does not thrill me.
When I started this is was fun, it was exhilerating and it was potentially lucrative. The first two of these have flown out of the window never to be seen again!. I have never ever had to try at anything in my life, academia was easy, job - easy, interviews, mortgage, day to day life - easy.
Poker fitted into this category as well when I had a job, I played, I won consistently over a very long period and life was good. It's different now and I'm not sure I like it very much.
Steve
Poor Play, Down Day
Lost some of my gains yesterday as I played below my best and made one or two questionable decisions. However you know it isn't your day where against people with 1/3 full stack you get all in pre flop holding AA, AA and KK and manage to lose all three. I lost against 88, JT and A7 - not going to lie to you it hurts when this happens.
I would appreciate a run of fortune as despite feeling calmer and happier with things I am still having crippling doubts about whether I really really want to do this and am not coping with down swings as well as I might. I'm still finding myself prone to idiocy of various sorts and it irritates me when I do stupid things for no good reason.
Away from poker I had a vaguely productive day yesterday as I sorted out a wonky curtain rail which had been like it since we moved in (over a year ago). this involved taking everything down, moving the wardrobe, polyfilling the holes and redrilling. Easy enough you may think! However this opinion would be restricted only to those who do not know how awful I am at any sort of manual labour - when I put my flat pack wardrobe together I managed to break it in the same place twice through some fine ingenuity.
Anyway this all went well, holes sorted brackets screwed back in and it looked neat and tidy. Excellent all I needed to do was move the wardrobe back, sadly this is where the problem began. The wardrobe sits in an alcove and is very close to the edge of the bracket when pushed in - I forgot this and guess what happened?
Obviously the beautifully affixed bracket was powered out of the wall by the might of the stupid f*ing wardrobe and I had to redo it. Grrr, one day I will successfully do something around the house in one go. Odds suggest it's bound to happen one day.
Steve
I would appreciate a run of fortune as despite feeling calmer and happier with things I am still having crippling doubts about whether I really really want to do this and am not coping with down swings as well as I might. I'm still finding myself prone to idiocy of various sorts and it irritates me when I do stupid things for no good reason.
Away from poker I had a vaguely productive day yesterday as I sorted out a wonky curtain rail which had been like it since we moved in (over a year ago). this involved taking everything down, moving the wardrobe, polyfilling the holes and redrilling. Easy enough you may think! However this opinion would be restricted only to those who do not know how awful I am at any sort of manual labour - when I put my flat pack wardrobe together I managed to break it in the same place twice through some fine ingenuity.
Anyway this all went well, holes sorted brackets screwed back in and it looked neat and tidy. Excellent all I needed to do was move the wardrobe back, sadly this is where the problem began. The wardrobe sits in an alcove and is very close to the edge of the bracket when pushed in - I forgot this and guess what happened?
Obviously the beautifully affixed bracket was powered out of the wall by the might of the stupid f*ing wardrobe and I had to redo it. Grrr, one day I will successfully do something around the house in one go. Odds suggest it's bound to happen one day.
Steve
Monday 28 January 2008
Game On
I've been absent from the tables for a week and I feel that it has done me a lot of good. It has given me a chance to relax, take stock and decide upon a plan of action to which I may actually stick. I have been getting way too emotionally involved in my results at the table and it has not been much fun being me throughout almost all of January.
However one week later I feel better able to cope with the ups and downs of the game and have reloaded my account to give an adequate bankroll for the levels I wish to play at for the next month.
Last time I went through a terrible run I made about $8k back in three weeks playing 2-4nl and 3-6nl with some good discipline. I know I can do it and will be attempting to rebuild at these stakes again. It is a level where I know I am a comfortable winning player and I'm not going to set any goals as to how much I'm looking to win. I'm just going to play well and let results take care of themselves. I'm pretty committed to playing at these stakes throughout february and see how things have gone at the end of the month.
Anyway I returned yesterday and played extremely solidly, I've found a couple of players who are very easy to steal from which helps when cards are not going my way. Anyway I won $900 during yesterday and it feels wonderful to be off to a good start.
Anyway things which will differentiate my play from previously will be apparant more away from the table than before.
However one week later I feel better able to cope with the ups and downs of the game and have reloaded my account to give an adequate bankroll for the levels I wish to play at for the next month.
Last time I went through a terrible run I made about $8k back in three weeks playing 2-4nl and 3-6nl with some good discipline. I know I can do it and will be attempting to rebuild at these stakes again. It is a level where I know I am a comfortable winning player and I'm not going to set any goals as to how much I'm looking to win. I'm just going to play well and let results take care of themselves. I'm pretty committed to playing at these stakes throughout february and see how things have gone at the end of the month.
Anyway I returned yesterday and played extremely solidly, I've found a couple of players who are very easy to steal from which helps when cards are not going my way. Anyway I won $900 during yesterday and it feels wonderful to be off to a good start.
Anyway things which will differentiate my play from previously will be apparant more away from the table than before.
- No individual sessions of longer than 2hrs and at least a 30min (preferably longer) break between sessions.
- Sensible sleeping patterns - up in the morning and in bed by 3am (exception next weekend for the superbowl though)
- Not feeling like I need to play at any point - no targets, no expectations just play when I want to within the above parameters
- Walking - Nat has started going for walks every evening and I need to join her or go during the day at least 5 times a week.
- Some live poker - I will be going this week, never played live in the UK before and it's quite exciting as a prospect. I'll probably play quite low first time and then move up to y online stakes once I'm comfortable with the surroundings etc.
Overall the strategy can be condensed to play less - win more as hopefully this will enable me to focus at all times and not get caught up in the game to the detrement of other things in my life.
I'm still not feeling great but I feel a huge amount better than I did a week ago and am satisfied that I am feeling strong enough to cope with whatever the game throws at me. Here's hoping for a better february.
Thanks to all who have commented on my blog during the last couple of weeks, the support and advice is much appreciated and hopefully we'll see evidence of me listening to some of it and improving my lifestyle accordingly.
Steve
Tuesday 22 January 2008
Mauldlin Musings
I am very very depressed by my current situation. Because things have not been going well I have managed to deprive myself of sleep on a number of occasions which leads to me feeling even worse about everything. I feel completely helpless at the moment, I've lost more on the bounce before so it really isn't entirely that.
I'm depressed by how I seem to react to things since I took poker up as my living. When I was doing it part time alongside a full time job I was eager to play, took beats in good humour and genuinely cherished the time I had to play. Don't feel like that any more.
I don't know whether I can handle having to win - it doesn't matter if I know that I can, because I don't have a paycheck it means my results matter more, whereas before it was all bonus money now it is essential and holds a lot more importance, especially emotionally.
My primary reasons for getting into this were profitability and lifestyle. Thusfar both have been pretty poor. I struggle with the lifestyle because it is now my job - when it goes badly it eats away at me and because I have no actual job during the week it means that I can play whenever, think about it all the time and this is not a good situation for my brain to get into.
When I'm winning it is never enough and when I am losing it is always too much and it takes so little for me to start to feel negative or vulnerable. This is not what I want!
I've realised that I am absolutely at rock bottom now so have locked myself out for a week - after that I shall return play on and see if I can impose my regime and start enjoing it again. If not then we'll deal with that when we come to it.
If I was to predict right now I honestly believe I will quit playing for a living purely because I find it almost too hard to motivate myself to live a worthwhile and meaningful existence. This seems ridiculous but it's surprising how little I have bothered to do during the past few months. I have dvd's I haven't watched, books I haven't read, games I haven't played and ton and tons of other stuff I could enjoyably get on with... but I don't.
This just wasn't something I was concerned about - why would anyone actively not make the effort to make their lives as full and as enjoyable as possible?? Seems crazy but it is easier and often more appealing not to bother.
I've always known that there would be some major downs as well as ups however I am simply not dealing with them very well and that disturbs me, in fact I regularly make them worse and this leads to me feeling pretty worthless and stupid.
My game has and always will rely on patience and concentration, I feel like these have actually got worse since I could play whenever I like rather than having a job gettingn in the way.
If I do decide that this is just not for me at some point I won't have any regrets about doing this. It has come at a time in my career where I'd have left my previous job anyway and moved on to something new..sadly I don't really know what I'm looking for if I do decide to return to work.
It may be that I'l come back fully rested, looking forward to playing and on form. Still might not be enough though. The thing is you have to want to change things and make the effort and I've never been any good at this trying malarky - things either work for me or they don't. I'm not going to try to convince myself what I want either way.
Thinking through my time as a pro so far I'm unimpressed. Cash wise it's been ok, lifestyle wise it's been horrendous - obviously this is changeable but it takes a really strong will to rely on yourself every single day, to motivate yourself to be productive, to quit when you should and generally to have the emphasis entirely on yourself to impose structure, routine and pick yourself back up when things go badly. I don't know that I want to do this long term
I love the idea of playing for a living, I'm just not so sure that I enjoy the reality...
Steve
I'm depressed by how I seem to react to things since I took poker up as my living. When I was doing it part time alongside a full time job I was eager to play, took beats in good humour and genuinely cherished the time I had to play. Don't feel like that any more.
I don't know whether I can handle having to win - it doesn't matter if I know that I can, because I don't have a paycheck it means my results matter more, whereas before it was all bonus money now it is essential and holds a lot more importance, especially emotionally.
My primary reasons for getting into this were profitability and lifestyle. Thusfar both have been pretty poor. I struggle with the lifestyle because it is now my job - when it goes badly it eats away at me and because I have no actual job during the week it means that I can play whenever, think about it all the time and this is not a good situation for my brain to get into.
When I'm winning it is never enough and when I am losing it is always too much and it takes so little for me to start to feel negative or vulnerable. This is not what I want!
I've realised that I am absolutely at rock bottom now so have locked myself out for a week - after that I shall return play on and see if I can impose my regime and start enjoing it again. If not then we'll deal with that when we come to it.
If I was to predict right now I honestly believe I will quit playing for a living purely because I find it almost too hard to motivate myself to live a worthwhile and meaningful existence. This seems ridiculous but it's surprising how little I have bothered to do during the past few months. I have dvd's I haven't watched, books I haven't read, games I haven't played and ton and tons of other stuff I could enjoyably get on with... but I don't.
This just wasn't something I was concerned about - why would anyone actively not make the effort to make their lives as full and as enjoyable as possible?? Seems crazy but it is easier and often more appealing not to bother.
I've always known that there would be some major downs as well as ups however I am simply not dealing with them very well and that disturbs me, in fact I regularly make them worse and this leads to me feeling pretty worthless and stupid.
My game has and always will rely on patience and concentration, I feel like these have actually got worse since I could play whenever I like rather than having a job gettingn in the way.
If I do decide that this is just not for me at some point I won't have any regrets about doing this. It has come at a time in my career where I'd have left my previous job anyway and moved on to something new..sadly I don't really know what I'm looking for if I do decide to return to work.
It may be that I'l come back fully rested, looking forward to playing and on form. Still might not be enough though. The thing is you have to want to change things and make the effort and I've never been any good at this trying malarky - things either work for me or they don't. I'm not going to try to convince myself what I want either way.
Thinking through my time as a pro so far I'm unimpressed. Cash wise it's been ok, lifestyle wise it's been horrendous - obviously this is changeable but it takes a really strong will to rely on yourself every single day, to motivate yourself to be productive, to quit when you should and generally to have the emphasis entirely on yourself to impose structure, routine and pick yourself back up when things go badly. I don't know that I want to do this long term
I love the idea of playing for a living, I'm just not so sure that I enjoy the reality...
Steve
Monday 21 January 2008
Plan of action
We'll see how long this lasts for but at least by writing it down in my blog I may feel slightly more compelled to stick to what I claim I will be doing.
Firstly I am going to switch back to omaha as I am deeply dispirited with nl holdem so a change is likely to be as good as a rest. As I'm changing to a more swingy game I'm going to play 1-2pl as money tends to change hands a lot lot quicker and this way the beats won't hurt quite as much.
Secondly I am going to enforce a schedule upon myself - no playing until 9pm and no playing past 3am. This (if I can stuck to it) will make sure that I play less when tired or disoriented and don't get up and ruin my day early on by playing bad losing poker. This will go hand in hand with my new schedule where I go to bed no later than 4am and get up no later than 12pm. This should be 11am -3pm most days with the odd exception. Hopefully by stopping myself from wasting entire days playing it will encourage me to do something positive with my life away from the tables. The starting point of which will be buying and reading the paper every day so it gets me out of the house, albeit briefly, and gets my mind thinking about other things.
Thirdly I am going to go and play some live poker in the UK. I'm going to go to Dusk till dawn at some point later on this week which will again forrce social interaction with people even though it will still be at a poker table.
Right that's the plan, it was the plan when I got up this morning and thought 'hey I know what'd be a good idea I'll play some poker despite being obviously tired'
Not only that but I had blocked myself from party so set up a new account at mansion to play - boy am I smart. Obviously I lost as it was just a stupid stupid idea, Maybe I'll stop doing these things soon, never know eh.
Anyway I'm going to try this and impose a regime upon my unwilling body and it should hopefully coincide with an upturn in fortune due to a happier mentality.
Steve
Firstly I am going to switch back to omaha as I am deeply dispirited with nl holdem so a change is likely to be as good as a rest. As I'm changing to a more swingy game I'm going to play 1-2pl as money tends to change hands a lot lot quicker and this way the beats won't hurt quite as much.
Secondly I am going to enforce a schedule upon myself - no playing until 9pm and no playing past 3am. This (if I can stuck to it) will make sure that I play less when tired or disoriented and don't get up and ruin my day early on by playing bad losing poker. This will go hand in hand with my new schedule where I go to bed no later than 4am and get up no later than 12pm. This should be 11am -3pm most days with the odd exception. Hopefully by stopping myself from wasting entire days playing it will encourage me to do something positive with my life away from the tables. The starting point of which will be buying and reading the paper every day so it gets me out of the house, albeit briefly, and gets my mind thinking about other things.
Thirdly I am going to go and play some live poker in the UK. I'm going to go to Dusk till dawn at some point later on this week which will again forrce social interaction with people even though it will still be at a poker table.
Right that's the plan, it was the plan when I got up this morning and thought 'hey I know what'd be a good idea I'll play some poker despite being obviously tired'
Not only that but I had blocked myself from party so set up a new account at mansion to play - boy am I smart. Obviously I lost as it was just a stupid stupid idea, Maybe I'll stop doing these things soon, never know eh.
Anyway I'm going to try this and impose a regime upon my unwilling body and it should hopefully coincide with an upturn in fortune due to a happier mentality.
Steve
Saturday 19 January 2008
Changes Required
It's really not going well at the moment. I am very seriously debating my future - this has less to do with losing than it does with my lifestyle and how I have conducted myself over the past four months.
During the time I have been a pro I have won more than enough to cover living expenses/mortgage etc and generally be a reasonably successful player. Sadly I have not been at all happy with this and have made a series of hideous errors through my lifestyle.
I have failed to excercise enough which is frankly inexcuseable. I have overplayed when running badly and gotten myself increasingly stressed and frustrated. I have generally been slightly unpredictable to live with as my mood is linked to my performance at the poker table. When I am running awfully as at the moment I don't want to do anything and I mean anything. I don't want to cook, clean, eat, see people, excercise etc etc.
This is obviously not good. I also allow myself to get overtired and strung out and this leads to more mistakes.
Obviously this is not what I want from my choice of career. I know I am a winning player, that is a given. However I may not be strong enough to cope with not having a guaranteed income as bad runs have really really got to me in a big way.
Therefore it is obvious that if I am going to continue along this road in a successful manner I need to get my life in order. I have no desire to return to the world of work, that said if it turns out that I need the structure and social interaction that it brings then I will have to do so. I never disliked my job but it never really inspired or drove me - poker did that.
Now however that I am playing for my living it seems to have sapped the enjoyment somewhat and increased the stress which I feel!
So what am I going to do - bloody good question really!
1. Change my lifestyle to introduce a routine - bed no later than 3am and up by 11am latest, I will even set an alarm to ensure that this happens.
2. Draw a line under all losses this month and start over from my current bankroll of $2600 - 2-4nl until I either rebuild or alternatively bugger it all up.
3. Try to do something productive with my day until nat comes home which doesn't involve poker, clean, watch dvds, walk, shop whatever it may be just something to add some sort of value to my existence.
4. Re-evaluate my position in a month or so. If it isn;t working for me I will accept that and look for a job - I have no intention of letting this happen but if it isn't working for me for either lifestyle or monetary reasons then there is no point continuing.
I know I've not made the most of my last 4 months and desperately need to sort this out. Watch this space to see if I will.
Steve
During the time I have been a pro I have won more than enough to cover living expenses/mortgage etc and generally be a reasonably successful player. Sadly I have not been at all happy with this and have made a series of hideous errors through my lifestyle.
I have failed to excercise enough which is frankly inexcuseable. I have overplayed when running badly and gotten myself increasingly stressed and frustrated. I have generally been slightly unpredictable to live with as my mood is linked to my performance at the poker table. When I am running awfully as at the moment I don't want to do anything and I mean anything. I don't want to cook, clean, eat, see people, excercise etc etc.
This is obviously not good. I also allow myself to get overtired and strung out and this leads to more mistakes.
Obviously this is not what I want from my choice of career. I know I am a winning player, that is a given. However I may not be strong enough to cope with not having a guaranteed income as bad runs have really really got to me in a big way.
Therefore it is obvious that if I am going to continue along this road in a successful manner I need to get my life in order. I have no desire to return to the world of work, that said if it turns out that I need the structure and social interaction that it brings then I will have to do so. I never disliked my job but it never really inspired or drove me - poker did that.
Now however that I am playing for my living it seems to have sapped the enjoyment somewhat and increased the stress which I feel!
So what am I going to do - bloody good question really!
1. Change my lifestyle to introduce a routine - bed no later than 3am and up by 11am latest, I will even set an alarm to ensure that this happens.
2. Draw a line under all losses this month and start over from my current bankroll of $2600 - 2-4nl until I either rebuild or alternatively bugger it all up.
3. Try to do something productive with my day until nat comes home which doesn't involve poker, clean, watch dvds, walk, shop whatever it may be just something to add some sort of value to my existence.
4. Re-evaluate my position in a month or so. If it isn;t working for me I will accept that and look for a job - I have no intention of letting this happen but if it isn't working for me for either lifestyle or monetary reasons then there is no point continuing.
I know I've not made the most of my last 4 months and desperately need to sort this out. Watch this space to see if I will.
Steve
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