Cardiac Rhythm <—–Press here
I got this beat in my head. That seems to be all that is occupying there. I am at one of those rare dull moments for me.
I liked firing off the line when I played offensive lineman in football. I took pride in watching replays of me being out a second before every other lineman. I liked blindsiding guys on a cross block and knocking their ass into two of their teammates.
I like that in life too, waking up and living a good day. Getting to work that seems meaningful. Hanging out with the people I love. Doing things I wouldn’t normally do.
Lately, the energy’s been sapped out of me a little. I’m not depressed or anything. Actually I seem to be in pretty good spirits. Life just has those times where things aren’t clicking easily.
These times are more pronounced in professional poker. When I had a bad day at work in the real world it sucked, but I still got paid. When I have a bad day at work now it can easily cost my backers $5,000. That’s more than I used to make in four months of security work.
I know some of you are thinking, “but you’re backed, it’s not your money, who cares?” I’m backed because I was irresponsible with my money. I’m backed because it didn’t hurt when I was on my own. I’ve always done well for my backers because I take other people’s money much more seriously.
Which is why I’ve been bothered by my scattered results as of late. I’ve gotten a bunch of decent scores, but these days buy-ins add up. They keep taking more money out of first and scattering it through more min-cashes. There’s better players.
I haven’t had a big score in a long time. There’s been lots of solid 10-20K scores and a lot of small tournament success to keep me afloat. I’m really thankful for that, but damnit, I’m competitive. I want to win daaaammmnit!
I came so close to playing for millions in the PCA, and I just couldn’t get it done. I wasn’t really discouraged, but I came home wanting to grind a little online and get some big final tables. Instead for six, seven months I’ve just been blah grinding along.
Obviously I was discouraged to miss a chance for that kind of life changing money, but also playing on that stage is something I’ve desired my whole life. I imagine it’s how astronauts think about walking on the moon. It’s your final stage. Your boss battle. Not many people get an opportunity to make such life altering decisions. And it was all just a card game with your buddies before.
I feel blessed to still be even in the hunt. A ton of guys I knew at the beginning gave up or just couldn’t cut it anymore. One thing I love about this game is its unrestricted competition. Anyone can out study and out think you. As long as they have the buy-in they get to play with you.
But yeah, results haven’t been as thrilling. Guess I’m still learning. I’m also mediating this business problem I spoke of in the last blog. I’m trying to be professional and push the process along but it’s sobering. I’m just a peon in the grand scheme of things and can’t do much. I don’t even know much. I’m just trying to help two groups find a resolution.
I don’t like being near any of that. I’m hoping it all gets worked out.
I’m making money grinding even with all that but I hate messy business BS. I hate not being able to do anything.
That’s why I like the coaching. Pure, simple. We talk about a strategy game. We explore new angles. We look into the mathematics. We have a good time just talking about nothing after lesson. We go over tons of hand histories.
I love reasoning in a group. There is no lying to yourself there.
I’m working on a presentation of a theory I have. If I’m right I will have successfully debunked some tournament strategy I’ve heard in 800 different MTT Training videos. I’m going to present it to a small group first.
There is a tangible excitement there. I want to see if any one of these players can prove me wrong. Even if I got it wrong I’d like to know about it so I could correct how I play. If I got it right then I’ve worked through something that’s eluded my understanding for years.
That’s really my peace. I love to play poker, but lately I’ve loved the study almost more. When real life is becoming overwhelming I don’t like to play. Winning at that time will make me feel a little better about myself, but losing will feel way worse.
I can study in any emotional state. It really stabilizes me. There seems to be no end to the number of small improvements a player can make. I like to drink strong coffee and spread out hand histories and equations over two screens. I like to toy with Flopzilla. I like going through other player’s hand histories and discussing them with great players. I love the lessons too. It’s like having a fellow student check your work each day.
I am finding much more depth in turn and river decisions. Unfortunately, not as many of them are available to me in tournament play. It makes me want to go back to cash, but I have some things to settle in MTTs before I do that. (Read: Makeup)
And before I continue with my life I gotta handle this other crap. I wonder how much you’ll all get to learn.
My Plugs: Check out my vids at Pocketfives Training, contact me for lessons at assassinatocoaching@gmail.com, see other stuff I write with my friends at www.pokerheadrush.com, and follow my Twitter at TheAssassinato