Return to the tables

and nothing has changed... before I was consistently getting my money in good 65% favourite + and losing. Sadly that has continued and my fragile confidence has been shattered into a million tiny pieces leaving me doubting whether I can actually do this successfully as a full time career. I know that in terms of expectation I am now running around $20k below expectation on these hands.

I know what some of you may be thinking - I am doing the classic poker player thing of remembering only the bad beats and forgetting all the times where they held up. Sadly I am a realist and am very aware of exactly what is going on and I have plain and simple been a victim of extremely awful luck.

To be honest I have dealt with this appallingly badly in its latter stages as my whole demeanour has been affected, I am moody, stressed, snappy and generally a pain in the arse to be around. I don't want to see or speak to anybody as to be entirely frank I am embarrassed by this current run.

That may seem like a stupid or immature reaction but it sums up how I feel at the moment. I have played nearly 3000 hands since my return and have lost $1500, this in itself is not a huge amount but durin that time on 5 occasions all the money has gone in on the flop or turn where I hold top set and am a minimum of a 60% favourite, I've won 1 of these. ONE, and that is me running extremely well on recent form. On the rare occasions I have got in behind I have failed on every occasion to hit as well.

I know omaha is a swingy game, I'm not stupid or unrealistic BUT I have expectations of at least achieving 50% of my expectation over long periods of running bad but I'm getting nearer 5% on all the big hands. It has been hard to cope with, although I think I've dropped around $12-14k during this period it is NOT to do with the money. In many ways the money is unimportant, I'm up over the last month despite this, I'm secure in how I play and KNOW it is a winning style over the long run. However every bit of joy has been sapped from my being and I am genuinely quite miserable at the moment.

I'm not someone who gets too badly affected by poker usually, I accept bad runs with good humour, I understand that I can't always win and I tend not to tilt too much. I've managed the last one of these well despite the run I;ve had. The others sadly have got to me to such an extent that I feel close to tears after yet another bad beat, I feel physically sick, I have lost interest in many of the more important things in my life and am generally feeling about as low as I ever have in my life.

It is hard to take a week off come back and have it continue. It is difficult to continuously lose where you should lose and also lose where you should win. I've started to wonder if I have been cursed or done something to offend a supreme being who I don't even believe in. The hardest thing is to gain no reward for solid disciplined play and in fact be punished financially for it.

I did something I very very rarely do and told someone at my table to f**k off yesterday. This was after the all too familiar top set by me was cracked by another donkey call. T75 rainbow flop and I got called after my all in pot raise by a hand which consisted of 46XX with a backdoor flush out and I proceeded to get heartily f**ked.

Not only was this a godawful call, seriously awful in every way as he was obviously behind literally every possible hand I could have but he proceeded to inform me that he was 38% for the hand and had odds to call. I would have gladly punched him in his stupid ignorant face. He had 8 definite outs and even if he hit I could redraw to my full house. I was comfortably over a 70% favourite in this hand. I usually take this stuff in my stride and ignore it but it's just unbelievable. People are so stupid at times and seemingly stupidity is the key to beating me. Just wait until I look like I must have a big hand and stick all your money in. I guarantee that you will beat me!

I'm not trying to say that I am a flawless player, I'm not saying that I have a right to win above anyone else. I play poker largely by mathematics and I am currently on a statistically unlikely run of bad fortune. Sadly I do not have the heart to ride this out as it must surely end at some point. I am not willing to finance my play at the stakes I wish to play at to an extent where I may start losing overall. And most importantly I'm not prepared to be the person I have been for the last two weeks, I'm meant to be relaxed, happy and gradually winning enough to live very comfortably on... and I'm not right now, far from it.

SOOOOO what am I going to do you may ask. Good question and sadly one which keeps flitting through my brain and is failing to be answered to a satisfactory level. Well here is what I have come up with as a plan. God knows whether I will stick to it but I believe I will.

I'm quitting omaha for the time being as it is making me miserable. I don't really want to do this as I think my long term win rate is far better in this than it is in holdem but just for now I cannot handle the game. Therefore I will be returning to the game I have consistently beaten for the last 3 years although playing 2-4 rather than 5-10 for the moment as I just couldn't cope with losing 3-4 buy ins at 5-10.

I currently have $3k in my poker account and will play 2-4 until I build up to $5k then I may allow myself to play some 5-10 but we shall see. Don't know how this will go, also don't know what the hell I'm going to do if I start this by going on a losing streak (god I hope not) however that has to be the plan for the time being.

I can only apologise for not posting much recently, I do tend to do this, last time I went on a bad run my posting became less frequent as I go into my shell a bit and am less willing to share my mental state with people. I hope I've managed to give a very honest account of how I've been feeling and show that although life as a poker pro may be a fun and exciting career when it is going well it can be soul destroying if it goes really badly.

I shall try to get back to posting more regularly and may put in a progress counter to show how well or badly it is really going. Stupid thing is that I am actually relatively satisfied with where I am financially through the last 6 weeks - it's not brilliant earnings but it pays the bills. It's just how it has occurred and the heart wrenching downturn I have had.

Ah well, start over and refocus back on holdem

Steve

And the fine run continues

I've had another awesome day, where in every big pot where the money goes in on the flop or turn I get sucked out on. Luckily I'm managing to take this in my stride but I reckon I'm about 7-8k down on expectation across the last two days. It's quite a hole to deal with really.

However it may have bottomed out (hope so) and this hand is so weird to me, I like my play in it although I could certainly have bet the turn but I decided against it as I didn't think I'd get any action so I was willing to go for a delayed bet on the river should I still hold the nuts. Anyway take a look and if anyone can justify my opponents reshove over my raise considering pot size and my remaining stack I should be very interested to hear it. All I can conclude is that somehow I had cultivated a stealing image, I had raised a fair few but this was a 9 way pot on the flop surely the outright steal is not running through his head. Best I can offer is that he put me (optomistically) on a busted flush, even with this I'd only expect a call. Anyway take a look below.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1642924

Weird one really isn't it, I think the best explanation is that he's on tilt from another table or something.

Right I'm going to put in a short session and see if I can resurrect my bankroll somewhat. I feel a lot more positive than I did earlier today and hopefully that will lead to my hands holding up a bit more

Steve

Long Sucky Session and Late Night Trash TV

Still not got around to writing the second part of my previous article as I've not really been in the mood to blog. Don't really know why but I've felt fairly distracted so haven't yet taken the time to think through what I want to put.

I've had a really weird day where I don't think I've played at my best for a large part of it. Playing a little looser than I'd like and then I found myself stuck $3.2k which was not really what I'd envisaged when I got up this morning. Because of being stuck this much I've definitely over-played and probably put in 10+ hours today.

I always have this when I get stuck as I hate leaving the tables and certainly don't want to finish the day with that result. Anyway I did a pretty good job of getting unstuck and ended up about $650 down for the day which all in all is quite good. In many ways it is more satisfying getting unstuck than it is winning in the first place as it takes a great deal of resolve and tilt avoidance so I'm pleased with how I've handled that today.

It's now 2am and I've just got out of bed as I'm not having much success at dropping off, wouldn't normally matter but I've got to be up before 9am so it's by no means ideal. I feel a bit jaded because of the time I've put in today, not done anything else which is not part of how I'm meant to be conducting myself but I shan't be playing till Friday now so I can kind of justify it to myself.

I've got the TV on in the background and something called "street cred sudoku" has just come on. What on earth is the world coming to and how in god's name is something like that meant to be entertaining? I'm almost tempted to watch just to see how bad this is. I do wonder how shows like this come into fruition, perhaps the conversations go like this

"Oooh look there's a bandwagon, shall we leap on to it?"

"Hmmmm yes, seems like a good idea, maybe we can make a crap panel show out of it."

"But do you not suppose that people will pick up on the fact that the show has bugger all to do with Sudoku and is in fact a crass attempt to piggyback onto a strangely popular example of the modern zeitgeist"

"No, we'll put it on late and anyway people are stupid, ha ha ha ha ha"

I don't think that's too far wide of the mark and has got me wondering what other horrendous examples of modern culture I'll be exposed to through late night tv - have already encountered live roulette and I still don't understand the appeal of that one.

Right I need sleep and am probably waffling so best to finish here I think

Steve