Ok, so maybe thats a bit heavy (oh, and seasons greetings one and all btw), but those of you who grind a lot on-line (and live) know exactly what I mean. Its weird though, for the first year of turning 'pro' and playing poker full-time, I was very much on a steep learning curve, not only in terms of becoming a better player technically, but perhaps more in terms of trying to find out what works best for me in relation to playing patterns, volume, mood, environment etc etc. I think during my first 6 months, I definitely spewed a lot of money when playing whilst either tired or a drunk (or both), or just not in the right frame of mind, which is obv annoying because my first year was pretty good in terms of profit, but it could have been so much better.
I definitely needed that first year though, to learn about myself and the aforementioned aspects that I think are sometimes overlooked/dismissed within this oft sallow faced community which demands hours and hours of relentless concentration... And this is the thing, when you are winning, you just want to keep playing, and when you are losing, you feel that you need to keep playing - its so hard to know when to stop and take a break, and even when you do, its sometimes quite hard to switch off, and not think about certain spots where you just know you could have played better. Anyone who knows me, knows I think too much. I analytically tear the arse out of pretty much everything, more often than not to my detriment.
This obv has its pros and cons when it comes to poker, and im still in the process of figuring out exactly what those are, and how to best apply/eliminate them. I think one of the most important things that i've learned/learning to do, is to NOT analyse hands whilst im still playing. This is soooo bad, and has without doubt cost me thousands over the last 2/3 years but recently, after getting to grips with a few mental game concepts, I am definitely improving in this aspect.
So far this month...
I'm obv running good atm (won a bottle of wine in the pub raffle, and then binked the preceding poker tournament/crapshoot - luckbox) - a polar opposite to this time last year, when December was my worst month of the year - I finished about $7k down for Nov and Dec combined and it was quite tough to take, especially at xmas time when I wanted to buy cool presents, drink ridiculous amounts of booze, scoff posh nosh and attend parties and stuff. I'd never been coolered and 2 outered so much in such a short space of time, but this year I seem to be on the other end of it (shit, did i just flick the doom switch?!) so I'll just keep plodding along and try my best to keep the momentum. I'm not really interested in reaching x amount of hands, like many other regs go on about (myself included in the past tbf) - I'm def going for quality over quantity. I've switched back to just playing 4-6 tables and playing in shorter spells with regular breaks, and this seems to be working so i'm gonna just stay with it for a bit.
On a lighter note, I went to watch Shed Seven with a few mates last night in Cambridge. We had a great night actually, but the band were pretty shit tbh. I used to love Shed Seven, and saw them twice when I lived in Bristol during their 'glory' years, but I suppose I realised last night why they never really kicked on like the other Britpoppy bands that were around at the time, like Blur, Oasis and Ocean Colour Scene. They've obv wrote a few classics, like 'Chasing Rainbows' and 'Stand By' but tbh, most of the other tracks are pretty lame imo (especially the newer stuff - good God droan), and i found myself getting a bit bored. Was good to see the leadsinger from the Seahorses there though (cant remember his name), and he did a couple of his own classics including an acoustic version of 'Blinded by the Sun' which was really good, and had the entire crowd singing along.
We stopped off in a dodgy pub on the way home and drank some quality malt whisky (Glenlivet, lush), which, along with the bottle of JD that me and Lee were getting stuck into on the way there, had quite an effect...
So out of it bless 'im (good camera work Gilly, and shout to Ross for driving and generally being a legend :-)
Oh, and just have to include this. The series is fucking genius, and I strongly urge anyone who hasnt seen it, to see it.
Merry xmas everybody.
