Time to kickstart this old blog

I've felt like writing lately and why not use this old blog? I'm mostly writing for myself and while I could just as well put all the thoughts into a text document, I tend to lose text documents whenever I format my computer or switch computers so why not put it online. It's always fun to go back a year or two later and see what was going through my head at the time.

I'm starting to get frustrated with poker. I moved down to Florida in August of last year and it was supposed to be the promise-land. More money than what we knew what to do with, the chance of rebuilding from past mistakes and finally getting my life together and all this while surrounded by palm trees, hot chicks and beaches? How could it go wrong?

It's now been 9 months or so of living here and things didn't turn out the way I hoped. The first few months started out really well and after having a 15k month early I thought this was everything it was built up to be, then a downswing hit. Then dealing with regular life shit that probably made me play worse. The downswing turned into a break-even stretch and my limits of how much I was playing with every day (I'm entirely backed) went down in hopes of saving the amount of money I was losing per session. Now I'm stuck playing $2/5 still after 9 months with $800 a session to play on and with the guidelines of play really snug and let the money come to you. Except the money isn't coming to me.

Now the more I've spent time thinking about this, my theory is that tight definitely isn't right in these games. I can't name one regular in that poker room that is a winning player that plays predictably tight, not one. Besides Lenny if he wins as much money as he claims he does but I rarely see him win when I'm at the table, I'm not calling the dude a liar, I'm just just saying that people are full of shit and I don't know for certain. The good regulars who I suspect are winning players all play good, loose aggressive poker. They pick up all the dead pots, they usually are the only ones 3-betting with any frequency, they valuetown the tight regulars and bloat the pots whenever they have hands and try to punish the tight regulars who play hit or miss poker. I've tried playing this tight hit or miss poker and it definitely isn't working. It's so reliant on catching cards and inherently more frustrating when you get your hands beat. It kills me seeing good preflop spots that I have to fold, where I normally would 3-bet or see a spot postflop where I just feel like a raise would win the pot and instead I fold because if I'm wrong it'll cut down so much of my 800 limit a day to play on that it makes it hard to maneuver. Plus I have to get quizzed after the session why I did that and it's always hard to explain hands that are based on live reads or how the flow of the game is going to somebody who isn't at the table. In a vacuum a lot of the hands look silly which is why I now will not play a hand that I can't justify in writing afterwards (since I have to report all hands I play) and it makes things tricky as well when you have to first think about how this is going to look before you play the hand. I talked to an old buddy from Tunica about this and his suggestion was to just play my game the way I'm used to playing and then lie about the hands. Now while this would be the easy route, I couldn't do it. I've never been one to make up shit about my poker game or hands that I've played and I didn't plan on starting now and I have a feeling that would add a ton more stress in the long-run.

Now the counter-argument, so if I supposedly have the secret how to win in these games, how come I didn't make 100k in the first couple of months? I think a couple of things. For once, I ran really well early, got sloppy and was just autopiloting after that without thinking about cards too much, I just played. I took the aggression a little bit too far as well and need to learn how to slow down when the game asks for it. I also didn't put in as many hours as I should've early, I've put in lots of hours now when I'm trying to play like a nit but I didn't put in enough hours once my downswing started hitting before. I could've played more.

I also had some shit that I can't talk about in the blog which messed with my head a bit, and while I kept telling myself it didn't affect me at the time, it certainly did. I also was getting used to the game, the players and playing full-time for the first time in about two years. I played very sporadically over the last couple of years and hadn't played for a few months leading up to the Florida trip. If I could do it all over again I would but now there's nothing left but regrets.

It looks like my only option now is to return home to Sweden. I have to give up the dream and just throw in the towel unless something goes radically different in the next couple of months. I am not religious but I pray every day for a heater so I can make enough money to pay my debts and have a little bit left to play on. I don't wanna leave as I love it here but the current situation isn't working. The hard part is that I know it is near impossible for me to make the amount of money that I need to when I play tight like I've been told to play so it is even more stressful. When I get 2 outed for 2500 with two cards to go like two days ago then it hurts fifty times more knowing I can't make that 2500 back unless the cards absolutely hit me in the face. Even so they have to hit me in the face over the next couple of days just to make that back, I will never have a chance to make it back in the same session playing snug. When I was still "playing poker" and not waiting for hands, it still bothered me but not nearly as much as it does when I'm now playing like a nit as I could just calm myself down and look for good spots and wait for hands, now I'm just waiting for hands. It was so much easier to calm myself down too when I win some pots and lose some pots instead of just waiting for hours and hours and hours only to play a hand and get beat, plus if you're up a bit from just picking up dead money in pots, it doesn't hurt so much to lose some back.

I feel like I'm completely at the mercy of luck and I pray to whoever runs shit up there in the skies to let me run good for two months. Please, so I can pay my debts and then play on my own come September. If that happens and I am still struggling 2 months after September then I'll go home and I won't complain. But I just want one more real chance, give me my "one time dealer" as we poker players like to use... unless I have already used up my one time. :(