Everything is anathema

I spilt beer on my lovely Logitech illuminated keyboard and and it died a horrible silicon death. I am now using a clunky MS keyboard from what feels like 1972. I want a new Logitech so badly I even paid for express delivery. BALLA.

Life has been trundling along nicely, playing a mix of online and live. I've made some pretty good friends playing live, so that must surely earn me some life points. Here in the mid-section of this blog post I suppose I should try and insert some kind of meaningful content. I thought it would be a good idea to share some simple concepts that many of us neglect:

- For the vast majority of us it's more important to win money than to be the best in the room at poker. Thus, the reason we sit and play should be because we stand to win the most money possible. The time when this should not be a primary goal is when playing specifically in order to improve, but one could argue that even this is based around winning the most long-term. If you are playing in games with only other competent regs, don't complain about your winrate. If you think reg X is a massive bumhunter, perhaps you should take a leaf out of his book. If you couldn't possibly, because bumhunting (or, to use it's other name, "game selection") is the worst evil known to man then I look forward to your upcoming HU battle with jungleman. Do keep me posted on your progress.

- This is the really important one: Play more when you feel you are running well. Play less tables, less often when you feel you are running badly. For most of you, I bet it's the other way around - which is entirely counter-intuitive. How often do you find yourself extending sessions and making time to play when you are getting back to even and how often do you find yourself curtailing sessions when you've won a large number of BI in a short span of time? When you are running bad and you force yourself to play more, you are inviting non A-game play and higher variance. When you are running well and you quit your sessions early, you are denying yourself profit. Obtain a shock collar that delivers 500,000 volts every time you use the phrase "grind it out" or "lock up a profit".

I have to get back to important business now. At some point I might play some poker.