slowlane123's poker blog

Well, the last 3 days haven't been any better than my last post as far as run good goes.

In my last post I was disappointed with how I was playing and running. Now I'm only disappointed with how I'm running. The last 3 days I really feel I have played well. I took 2 days off, studied where I was going wrong, watched some FR vids and got my head cleared out. I felt really positive coming into the weekend that I would crush rush!

I started out on a sweet heater for about 90 minutes or so and swung up $1600. It felt really good and I thought perhaps the tides were about to change. They weren't.

I don't even have words for what I've been through since the little upswing. It's far, far worse than anything I've encountered before. It's like some sort of entity comes and gives the fish their 2 outer, everytime. Makes the regs spew off 150bb with top pair on the turn just to catch trips on the river. I have legitimately been outplaying people and feeling really good about my game but luck just won't let me win. I ran $3.5k below EV yesterday in a marathon 10k hand session. I was playing very deep and very, very well.

I came out of yesterday's session down $1.5k but feeling absolutely fantastic about how I'd handled my play. I went into today with the same positive frame of mind I had come out of the previous session with and again felt I had played really well. I don't like referring to AIEV much as I know it means just about jack shit in the big scheme of things. But the fact is that once you play alot of poker, you know when you're running good or bad and right now this is by faaaar the worst I have ever run. It's not just the AIEV, it's the relentless coollers. You've probably heard it all before so I won't bore you with details.

Needless to say I am now on the biggest downswing of my career. Some points of note for rest of February (and life in general):

- Tomorrow is the last day of weekend poker for 5 days and I will likely not be playing much at all if any next weekend as I have friends in town for UFC (woooohooo). I will 4 table 400nl for as long as I feel comfortable doing so. I will have a stoploss of $2k (not because I can't handle losing more, but because if I lose that much tomorrow then clearly the poker gods want me to take a break from 400nl).

- During week days I will be 4 tabling 200nl (I may end up 2 tabling 400 and 2 tabling 200 if tomorrow goes well).

- Until further notice I will not be 6 tabling rush. Something I didn't realise going into this 100k hand thing is that I'm extremely comfortable 4 tabling 400nl rush and I'd probably be very comfortable 6 tabling 400 rush. But when you 4 table 400 and 2 table 200, your hourly hands and the speed at which you need to make decisions increases exponentially. I think too many tables has been a contributing factor on some level to this downswing for sure.

- My new guitar is amazing and apart from this downswing, I am very happy and on a pretty sick life heater.

- My fitness has been going very well. I'm feeling very health and have been eating very, very well. I couldn't be happier with my body/mind and feel confident I will make it through the rest of the month without a day off.

- My nails are not looking so good. I lost a few last weekend while partying and the pressure of this downswing has got to me somewhat. Out of the 10 nails that I once had intact I now have probably 5.5.

- I will never, EVER enter into another hand/volume/month thing in my entire life. Nor will I set goals for a number of hands to play in a specific period. I had been warned about this by other coaches saying it is a horrible way to play. They (as did I, previously) always said that you should play when you feel like it. Play when you're in the mood to play poker, not when you're hungover, tired, frustrated or because you HAVE to play. Even though this blog was set out for me to succesfully make $20k or play 100k hands with a buttload of profit. If nothing else comes out of this I hope young up and comers in the poker scene (especially my students) who read this will realise that everyone makes mistakes. Deciding to set volume for a month was a huge mistake. I've seen other coaches do it. I've seen my students do it. And now, as retarded as it might seem, I to have done it. I think this is the most important point of them all and I hope it really hits home for those reading (if anyone out there is?!). I know I've heard it loud and clear. It was really stupid of me to do this as I know that I perform poorly when I'm put into situations where I have to do something.

- Some of the other biggest mistakes of my poker career: playing underrolled, attempting 6max/HU (at 400nl+) without any knowledge of the games or how to play them properly, playing at the same tables as RobSainter to name a few.

I'm sorry to have disappointed everyone reading. Hopefully you will have learned something about poker and about me. Initially I had thought I would just shut this blog down until I make some sort of recovery in the poker world. That thought stemmed from the fact that I was embaressed by the result of this 100k hand challenge. But now I have decided that I accept what I have done and will continue to blog and show my recovery from this mess. I accept that I have disappointed myself and anyone reading this blog and know I will grow from this.

A bad week of poker won't break me. It may get me down a little, but I will bounce back. That's what being a poker player is all about.

Graph for last 3 days (yes, that's 6k+ under EV):