PLO Pimpin'

What’s up Degens?

I’m writing this right now at a coffee shop in Sevilla, and couldn’t be more stoked about the Euro trip so far. The first few days were spent getting completely hammered at a couple of really sick clubs in the city, one of which was called Aqua, where the chicks were seriously unbelievable. Feel free to disagree with me, but European women seriously kick the absolute shit out of American women in every department; there’s just no comparison. Look, demeanor, personality, it’s just very hard to deny how much better European women are, but it’s kind of sad as well, since I’m obviously American!

Let me elaborate a little bit. I think the main difference between the quality of women lies mostly in the noticeable difference between an average American girl in comparison to Europeans of the same designation. More clearly, if you were to pick a random girl from America and compare her side by side with a European girl in categories like appearance, intelligence, compassion, and self confidence, I think an average European girl would blow away an American chick in these areas. Now, on the other hand, I think a high quality American woman matches up very well to a high quality American chick, but what I’m arguing is that it’s much harder to find high quality American women than it is to find high quality European women. Just my two cents though, and in all fairness, I’ve only known a handful of European women on a personal level intimate enough to make this kind of judgment, so sample size could definitely be a factor here. Alec Torelli seems to agree with me, so if you’re interested check out his blog as well http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-blogs/35-alec-torelli/entries/6851-life-and-women

Anyway, the partying in the first few days kind of wore me out, and truthfully I’m not a huge club thumping type of guy (unless it’s a really dope club [insert Vegas here]), so I’ve spent the last couple of days doing a little relaxing. My friend and I drove a few hours down to this beach town at the southernmost point in Spain called Tarifa, where we did a little partying and walked on the beaches. Tarifa is definitely one of the coolest cities I’ve ever been to. It reminds me a lot of San Diego, except for the fact that nobody speaks a word of English, and the town only has about 5k people in it. At night you can stand on the beach and very clearly see the city lights on the coast of Africa, which makes you get that eerie feeling like.. Wow… I’m so far away from home right now, lol. Was really incredible though, I don’t think I’ll be forgetting that experience anytime soon.

The next few days are going to be spent doing a little more relaxing, and then next week, a friend and I rented out a beach house in Lagos, Portugal for the week, that should be a blast. His gf and some of her friends are heading down with us, so hopefully I’ll have some sick stories to share with y’all when I get back.

Also, I wanted to chat a bit about poker too. I wrote in an earlier entry about how I was taking some time off, and I think it’ll be really great for me when I return. I’m starting to crave playing a bit, and that’s definitely a good sign. I read a decent amount of a new PLO ebook I bought from LearnedFromTV, and I must say it opened my eyes to some really cool shit I’ve never thought of before. He quantifies a lot of things I already knew, and I can’t wait to start my lessons with him next month after I get back from Vegas.

Even though I haven’t been playing any cards, I’ve been doing a ton of thinking/reading about it. My friend over here used to play a lot back in the day when all of my friends were still playing casually and pipe dreaming about winning the ME (while also playing Bong’s the Button on the weekend, hahaha). Just talking poker with him reminded me how far I’ve come, and gave me some encouragement to make that kind of progress in the next year as well. We also talked a lot about how much emotions suck, and how they can really screw up your goals in poker. What spurred our conversation was a blog I read by Phil Galfond yesterday, which you can check out here. http://www.bluefirepoker.com/post-comment.aspx?postid=1125

I don’t want to go too in depth here, but I love Phil’s take on emotions here. The more I learn about poker, the more I realize I suck. I feel like one of my best qualities as a poker player is being painstakingly objective with myself and my skill level. I think if you’re ever going to make it in this game, you have to constantly be evaluating yourself and what you’re doing to get better. Too many players (myself included) have a few good months beating up on lesser competition and think they’re going to be doing it forever, but let’s face it.. The games are only getting tougher, and to stick around you’re going to need to continue to get better and improve your game if you want to continue to take advantage of the things poker has to offer you. Thinking you’re better than you really are is a huge leak, but sometimes I think that having blind confidence can be a good thing, since being successful at poker is so heavily reliant on playing confidently in the first place. Whether or not your confidence is well founded doesn’t matter; if in actuality you are confident does matter. I have a friend of mine who to be completely honest isn’t a very good player, but he’s been killing it for a few years now, and I think a large portion of that can be attributed to him thinking he’s a very good player, and just letting his instincts take over. He never psyches himself out. He never gets down on himself, and this is all because he thinks he’s so good, and he’s just confident he’ll never have a losing streak because he’s so much better than everyone else (even though he’s not). It’s an interesting dynamic for sure.

My big leak is only focusing on my bad sessions/hands/plays, and not remembering the times I played well and had a good mindset. When things start to go poorly, I tend to think negatively, and as a result, I hesitate in my decision making process and don’t think through hands properly. I think a lot of players are probably guilty of this, and it’s hard to deny those negative thoughts and just say “fuck it, I’m playing with a blank/even leveled mindset today, and really don’t care if I win 20bi’s or lose 20bi’s, I’m just going to play”.

I think when I get home, I’m going to move down and grind out a ton of hands at 200PLO; a level I know I can beat for a good winrate. It will be good for my confidence, and will really get me used to playing well and developing good mental habits.

Ah man, I saw Vanessas post in the forum today, I wish she was doing that series six months ago. If you’re a DC member and are also a 200PLO or 400PLO reg, I would do whatever I can to get in that video. Seriously… Do IT

I read Lefty’s blog (Rollover2k on FTP, super sick PLO player), and he’s pretty into the P90x workout, so I think I’m going to try it out. I’m in good shape right now, but am really bored of my workouts. I’ve gotten pretty strong, but I would like to tone up and do more total body work; P90x sounds like something I could use. Plus, I’m kind of sick of grinding it out with the meatheads at my gym. WTF is wrong with those guys anyway? The funny thing is they’re so ripped, but they probably never get laid lol.

This is getting rambly, but I enjoy rambling, and it’s my blog, so that’s what I’ll do! Haha, GL at the tables to everyone out there. Hopefully I can put an entry in before I go to Lagos.

JB