Self-analysis and recent mishaps
I have been trying to figure out the core of my problems lately, when it comes to life and poker both. For the last few months, I've been just extremely frustrated with my life and what it has become. It is basically endless of hours playing online, not getting anywhere, or playing in a casino and not getting anywhere and I feel like I'm in some kind of hamster-wheel that never ends. If you look back a year, or close to it, I was on my way to something good. I just came off a good month in December 2005, winning about $13k playing 2/4 NL and in January I had one cash in the Paradise Poker masters for $13k and a rebuy tournament win for 11k. In February, I almost right off the bat won a big tournament for $40k and my confidence and bankroll were both great.
I went on to make a very long extended series of bad decisions, lending money, staking friends and getting a house amongst other things. I travelled a lot, played my first $10k main event in New Orleans for the WSOP Circuit and then went to Oklahoma, California and Vegas. In Vegas I kept on with the bad decisions, I played way out of my bankroll playing $10/20 online, $10/20 and $5/10 live and bought straight into a couple $2000+ tournaments live. I also paid for an apartment, my share of the house in Tunica and a rental car which was $500+ a week. I basically was just throwing away money for absolutely no reason, it was inevitable for me to go broke sooner or later.
I came back to Tunica, I was frustrated and I wanted to get back and win myself a quick $100k and tried to play high online and I went on a bad run and lost about $10k and the night after that we had the car accident which ended up putting me in debt for the first time in a long, long time.
Now with that summary in mind, after this I've just basically not been able to focus. Every time I play live I'm just fucking around and I'm not playing my B game even, much less my A game. I'm not trying, I do whatever feels "fun". I run bluffs with 3-8o for $2k and just tap the table with a smile when I get called down, and then a few minutes later it hits me that I threw away $2k and I get completely sick about it and rinse and repeat day in and day out. I am stressing more about money now than I ever have before, yet I can't value it at all. Money means nothing to me and everything at the very same time. The only time I even seem to focus at all is if somebody else has vested interest in my money because then I have to be responsible for them too, but even that proved to be untrue after I won a tournament in December for $10k, ran well online and was up to a total of $17k bankroll, where I had 75% of it and my backer had 25% and then I start playing 25/50 online and blow it all and end up stone cold broke again.
I think my whole core problem is that I want to get back up to having a lot of money too quickly, and I have finally figured out the reason why. Well first of all, having money is nice, but I don't value $5k, $10k or even $25k at all anymore. I feel like I have a very high potential when it comes to poker, I honestly and truly feel that when I am playing my A game, I play very very well. So when I read about all these people with million dollar bankrolls and how easily they made their money online, I really do feel I'm "just as good as them". I also realize poker nowadays is not what it was two years ago, or even a year ago. People play better now, people are more aggressive, people generally "have a clue" now. That doesn't mean that a good player won't have an edge, but the edge isn't as large nowadays. I feel like the heydey of poker, the golden era if you will, is getting close to over. I feel like I don't have "time" to grind money and work my way up exercising proper bankroll management. I feel like I need to be "there" NOW, so I can take full advantage of the last of this poker boom. Once the major sites stop accepting US players that will be it for online play.
I don't know how to fix this or even how to view it differently, part of me wonder if I'm overevaluating myself and I'm really just a mediocre player and therefore I'm broke but I refuse to believe it. I am just praying that I hit a big tournament soon (big=100k+) so I can get back on my feet and start playing high again, because if I don't very soon, I'm ready to throw in the towel when it comes to poker and try go back to school. I am a hundred percent confident I could grind out a $60k a year salary from playing poker but that simply isn't good enough for me. Playing poker itself isn't satisfying, it isn't very much to be proud of and it certainly isn't something I would brag about to anybody so it doesn't hold the same stigma to me as having a nice "real" job would. It doesn't have the same career opportunities and every day I wonder whether the poker boom would crash or not so I would rather work for $60k a year than I would playing poker for the same amount. So unless something really happens sometime soon, I'm very close to calling it quits when it comes to playing poker.
I went on to make a very long extended series of bad decisions, lending money, staking friends and getting a house amongst other things. I travelled a lot, played my first $10k main event in New Orleans for the WSOP Circuit and then went to Oklahoma, California and Vegas. In Vegas I kept on with the bad decisions, I played way out of my bankroll playing $10/20 online, $10/20 and $5/10 live and bought straight into a couple $2000+ tournaments live. I also paid for an apartment, my share of the house in Tunica and a rental car which was $500+ a week. I basically was just throwing away money for absolutely no reason, it was inevitable for me to go broke sooner or later.
I came back to Tunica, I was frustrated and I wanted to get back and win myself a quick $100k and tried to play high online and I went on a bad run and lost about $10k and the night after that we had the car accident which ended up putting me in debt for the first time in a long, long time.
Now with that summary in mind, after this I've just basically not been able to focus. Every time I play live I'm just fucking around and I'm not playing my B game even, much less my A game. I'm not trying, I do whatever feels "fun". I run bluffs with 3-8o for $2k and just tap the table with a smile when I get called down, and then a few minutes later it hits me that I threw away $2k and I get completely sick about it and rinse and repeat day in and day out. I am stressing more about money now than I ever have before, yet I can't value it at all. Money means nothing to me and everything at the very same time. The only time I even seem to focus at all is if somebody else has vested interest in my money because then I have to be responsible for them too, but even that proved to be untrue after I won a tournament in December for $10k, ran well online and was up to a total of $17k bankroll, where I had 75% of it and my backer had 25% and then I start playing 25/50 online and blow it all and end up stone cold broke again.
I think my whole core problem is that I want to get back up to having a lot of money too quickly, and I have finally figured out the reason why. Well first of all, having money is nice, but I don't value $5k, $10k or even $25k at all anymore. I feel like I have a very high potential when it comes to poker, I honestly and truly feel that when I am playing my A game, I play very very well. So when I read about all these people with million dollar bankrolls and how easily they made their money online, I really do feel I'm "just as good as them". I also realize poker nowadays is not what it was two years ago, or even a year ago. People play better now, people are more aggressive, people generally "have a clue" now. That doesn't mean that a good player won't have an edge, but the edge isn't as large nowadays. I feel like the heydey of poker, the golden era if you will, is getting close to over. I feel like I don't have "time" to grind money and work my way up exercising proper bankroll management. I feel like I need to be "there" NOW, so I can take full advantage of the last of this poker boom. Once the major sites stop accepting US players that will be it for online play.
I don't know how to fix this or even how to view it differently, part of me wonder if I'm overevaluating myself and I'm really just a mediocre player and therefore I'm broke but I refuse to believe it. I am just praying that I hit a big tournament soon (big=100k+) so I can get back on my feet and start playing high again, because if I don't very soon, I'm ready to throw in the towel when it comes to poker and try go back to school. I am a hundred percent confident I could grind out a $60k a year salary from playing poker but that simply isn't good enough for me. Playing poker itself isn't satisfying, it isn't very much to be proud of and it certainly isn't something I would brag about to anybody so it doesn't hold the same stigma to me as having a nice "real" job would. It doesn't have the same career opportunities and every day I wonder whether the poker boom would crash or not so I would rather work for $60k a year than I would playing poker for the same amount. So unless something really happens sometime soon, I'm very close to calling it quits when it comes to playing poker.
posted by Swede at 11:52 PM
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