Man - where the hell have I been?
Oh yes. I was busy quitting poker a hundred times or so.
First, let's get my little insecurities out of the way up front. I virtually disappeared from the FTR forums, and quite completely disappeared from this here blog, for the last couple months. But did any of you miss me or say anything? Noooooooooo. You're all too self-involved, too busy making craploads of money, too enamored of "Lost" or whatever. Would it kill ya to post some morbid speculation about me? Maybe a little "dalecooper might have committed suicide! all the warning signs were there!"? C'mon. Make a guy feel wanted.
Anyway. What I've been doing since the last time I updated this, was enjoying still more downswing, contemplating quitting poker altogether, actually quitting poker for a couple of days here and there, and then slowly being sucked back in. That's always the way, isn't it? I hope I've come out the other side of this a better and more adaptive player - time will tell.
The downswing I've been on, touched upon in this blog numerous times, was really a combination - as they all are - of running bad, and letting the bad luck push me into making bad decisions. I didn't spend much of the time on actual tilt; instead I just sprung one leak after another in a semi-crazed attempt to find a style of play that would compensate for all the second best hands and horrible beats. I went through a stretch where I lost with (literally) half of my sets. If someone didn't have a higher set on the flop - which happened five times total during my bad run of about five months - then they had a draw and would suck out on me, with no re-suck forthcoming. Two times I flopped a set, got all the money in against someone with just a flush draw, and both times the guy hit, and I didn't fill up.
And if it wasn't sets it was other nonsense. I flopped a made flush with an open-ended straight flush draw built into it, and ended up getting all the money in on the flop against a guy who had nothing more than top pair (queens) with a jack of the same suit as the flop. A fourth heart came down - not one of the two that would have made me a straight flush - and he won the pot. That was discouraging, to say the least. Another time I had a big fat fish on the hook - the kind of guy that I would bet the pot on the flop with top pair, and he'd call me with one overcard and three live outs. A really, really bad player. That guy on one hand called me with his K3 pre-flop; called a pot-sized bet on the flop (king overcard, no pair); then proceeded to hit running threes, and thus de-stacked me. I had pocket queens. It was really something.
The cumulative effect of all that was bad. There were so many hands that burned into my memory instantly, like that creepy German guy with the squid lips in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" when he grabs the fire-heated medallion and thus brands his palm with the location of the Well of the Souls. On top of that I was running bad in sit-n-goes and multi-table tourneys, losing most coinflips and even hands where I had slight edges (60/40s and worse). Nothing seemed to go my way. So naturally I started pressing. All the time.
I would overbet to protect hands. I would overbet on bluffs. I would raise comical amounts with eye-widening frequency. In cash games I wasn't trying to be the table bully - I was trying to pick up the table and smash my opponents over the head with it, then use the splintered legs as spits and roast their corpses on a raging fire. Of course when people pick up on this it quickly becomes an epic leak. I was playing this way against even my friends in our friendly, .10/.20 cash game at my house, and they were slowly picking me apart at the right moments. And when I wasn't doing that, I was indulging my new favorite leak, which is paying off everything. Whenever people drew out on me, and I knew it, I would still call that last bet or raise every time. I would argue in my mind that it was because the pot odds demanded a call, but I knew I was beat, and the odds weren't always that good. Mostly I just wanted to wallow in my continuing bad luck. I wanted to get up from the table, stare at yet another improbable hand that had outflopped me or outdrawn me, and throw a giant pity party for myself. And I was fucking great at it.
--
Well, no more. I know when the turnaround happened. One night a friend and I were playing heads up, something we had been doing about once a week, either just for bragging rights or for a buck or two. No real money at stake - we just like to test each other. That night I was switching with great relish between pressing too hard and paying off too much, and between that and the fact that he was simply getting much better cards than me, I managed to lose four heads up matches in a row. Now, even though this guy is a good player, I don't think I have *ever* lost four heads up matches in a row. Before that night I don't think I had ever lost three in a row. I'm a good heads up player - playing the player and adjusting my strategy used to be my two biggest strengths. At the end of those matches, as I sat there and fumed and considered (again) giving it all up, I realized: I fucking suck now.
Sure I've been running bad and getting too many second best hands and all that, but I went out of my way to thwart some of my greatest strengths. I discussed it with my friend and he agreed with me - he knew I had been doing it, and he had been taking advantage. So: no more. I got back online, lowered my stakes to salvage an increasingly meager bankroll, and through force of will I turned it around.
I'm not going to say I'm back all the way yet, or that in a week I'll be back at the $50 and $100 tables cleaning up like I used to. It's going to take time. I spent basically the last six months getting myself into a perpetual loser's mentality: expecting to lose, sub-consciously wanting to lose, and trying way too hard to not lose in all the wrong ways. My friends (can I call you my friends? you didn't even notice I'd committed suicide, for fuck's sake. I hate you people) - poker is a wood screw that has to be put into a two-by-four. The best way to do it is to start a small hole with the right size drill bit, just smaller than the screw itself. Then you work the screw in with a screwdriver, at a regular speed and with a steady hand. You don't go too slow or too fast, and you can't shake around or force it in. If you do it the right way, at an even pace, with just the right amount of pressure, it will go in like it's meant to.
But if you do like I did, and break out the sledgehammer, you're going to bust open that hole and break that screw. Poker is not going to be nice to you if you do it wrong.
--
Enough about that. I've made a couple hundred dollars in the last week playing poker, and I'm happy with that result. I want to keep the ball rolling, but I don't want to jinx it.
What else have I been doing? Watching "Lost" mainly. I never watched this show until a couple weeks ago, when some friends loaned us the DVD set of season 1. We watched it start to finish, voraciously, and then I torrented the entirety of season 2 through episode 18, and set my DVR to record any new ones until I can get caught up. This is a good show. It has some cheesy moments and some, shall we say, plausibility gaps - but it has real potential. If they do it right it can be the show "The X-Files" should have been, and more (because they have more talent involved with "Lost"
. It could be something great. I hope they don't take a pile of money from the network and keep stretching it out, because that could ruin it. A premise like this has a natural lifespan; I'm thinking three seasons is probably plenty. Look at "The Prisoner" - wrapped up in 17 episodes, and McGoohan didn't even want to do that many. Look at "Twin Peaks" - it was really in its prime for only one year, and half of the second season is filler (at least until that slam-bang finale). Don't do that to me, "Lost." Wrap things up right.
Oh yes. I was busy quitting poker a hundred times or so.
First, let's get my little insecurities out of the way up front. I virtually disappeared from the FTR forums, and quite completely disappeared from this here blog, for the last couple months. But did any of you miss me or say anything? Noooooooooo. You're all too self-involved, too busy making craploads of money, too enamored of "Lost" or whatever. Would it kill ya to post some morbid speculation about me? Maybe a little "dalecooper might have committed suicide! all the warning signs were there!"? C'mon. Make a guy feel wanted.
Anyway. What I've been doing since the last time I updated this, was enjoying still more downswing, contemplating quitting poker altogether, actually quitting poker for a couple of days here and there, and then slowly being sucked back in. That's always the way, isn't it? I hope I've come out the other side of this a better and more adaptive player - time will tell.
The downswing I've been on, touched upon in this blog numerous times, was really a combination - as they all are - of running bad, and letting the bad luck push me into making bad decisions. I didn't spend much of the time on actual tilt; instead I just sprung one leak after another in a semi-crazed attempt to find a style of play that would compensate for all the second best hands and horrible beats. I went through a stretch where I lost with (literally) half of my sets. If someone didn't have a higher set on the flop - which happened five times total during my bad run of about five months - then they had a draw and would suck out on me, with no re-suck forthcoming. Two times I flopped a set, got all the money in against someone with just a flush draw, and both times the guy hit, and I didn't fill up.
And if it wasn't sets it was other nonsense. I flopped a made flush with an open-ended straight flush draw built into it, and ended up getting all the money in on the flop against a guy who had nothing more than top pair (queens) with a jack of the same suit as the flop. A fourth heart came down - not one of the two that would have made me a straight flush - and he won the pot. That was discouraging, to say the least. Another time I had a big fat fish on the hook - the kind of guy that I would bet the pot on the flop with top pair, and he'd call me with one overcard and three live outs. A really, really bad player. That guy on one hand called me with his K3 pre-flop; called a pot-sized bet on the flop (king overcard, no pair); then proceeded to hit running threes, and thus de-stacked me. I had pocket queens. It was really something.
The cumulative effect of all that was bad. There were so many hands that burned into my memory instantly, like that creepy German guy with the squid lips in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" when he grabs the fire-heated medallion and thus brands his palm with the location of the Well of the Souls. On top of that I was running bad in sit-n-goes and multi-table tourneys, losing most coinflips and even hands where I had slight edges (60/40s and worse). Nothing seemed to go my way. So naturally I started pressing. All the time.
I would overbet to protect hands. I would overbet on bluffs. I would raise comical amounts with eye-widening frequency. In cash games I wasn't trying to be the table bully - I was trying to pick up the table and smash my opponents over the head with it, then use the splintered legs as spits and roast their corpses on a raging fire. Of course when people pick up on this it quickly becomes an epic leak. I was playing this way against even my friends in our friendly, .10/.20 cash game at my house, and they were slowly picking me apart at the right moments. And when I wasn't doing that, I was indulging my new favorite leak, which is paying off everything. Whenever people drew out on me, and I knew it, I would still call that last bet or raise every time. I would argue in my mind that it was because the pot odds demanded a call, but I knew I was beat, and the odds weren't always that good. Mostly I just wanted to wallow in my continuing bad luck. I wanted to get up from the table, stare at yet another improbable hand that had outflopped me or outdrawn me, and throw a giant pity party for myself. And I was fucking great at it.
--
Well, no more. I know when the turnaround happened. One night a friend and I were playing heads up, something we had been doing about once a week, either just for bragging rights or for a buck or two. No real money at stake - we just like to test each other. That night I was switching with great relish between pressing too hard and paying off too much, and between that and the fact that he was simply getting much better cards than me, I managed to lose four heads up matches in a row. Now, even though this guy is a good player, I don't think I have *ever* lost four heads up matches in a row. Before that night I don't think I had ever lost three in a row. I'm a good heads up player - playing the player and adjusting my strategy used to be my two biggest strengths. At the end of those matches, as I sat there and fumed and considered (again) giving it all up, I realized: I fucking suck now.
Sure I've been running bad and getting too many second best hands and all that, but I went out of my way to thwart some of my greatest strengths. I discussed it with my friend and he agreed with me - he knew I had been doing it, and he had been taking advantage. So: no more. I got back online, lowered my stakes to salvage an increasingly meager bankroll, and through force of will I turned it around.
I'm not going to say I'm back all the way yet, or that in a week I'll be back at the $50 and $100 tables cleaning up like I used to. It's going to take time. I spent basically the last six months getting myself into a perpetual loser's mentality: expecting to lose, sub-consciously wanting to lose, and trying way too hard to not lose in all the wrong ways. My friends (can I call you my friends? you didn't even notice I'd committed suicide, for fuck's sake. I hate you people) - poker is a wood screw that has to be put into a two-by-four. The best way to do it is to start a small hole with the right size drill bit, just smaller than the screw itself. Then you work the screw in with a screwdriver, at a regular speed and with a steady hand. You don't go too slow or too fast, and you can't shake around or force it in. If you do it the right way, at an even pace, with just the right amount of pressure, it will go in like it's meant to.
But if you do like I did, and break out the sledgehammer, you're going to bust open that hole and break that screw. Poker is not going to be nice to you if you do it wrong.
--
Enough about that. I've made a couple hundred dollars in the last week playing poker, and I'm happy with that result. I want to keep the ball rolling, but I don't want to jinx it.
What else have I been doing? Watching "Lost" mainly. I never watched this show until a couple weeks ago, when some friends loaned us the DVD set of season 1. We watched it start to finish, voraciously, and then I torrented the entirety of season 2 through episode 18, and set my DVR to record any new ones until I can get caught up. This is a good show. It has some cheesy moments and some, shall we say, plausibility gaps - but it has real potential. If they do it right it can be the show "The X-Files" should have been, and more (because they have more talent involved with "Lost"
. It could be something great. I hope they don't take a pile of money from the network and keep stretching it out, because that could ruin it. A premise like this has a natural lifespan; I'm thinking three seasons is probably plenty. Look at "The Prisoner" - wrapped up in 17 episodes, and McGoohan didn't even want to do that many. Look at "Twin Peaks" - it was really in its prime for only one year, and half of the second season is filler (at least until that slam-bang finale). Don't do that to me, "Lost." Wrap things up right.
on April 27, 2006, 10:03 am
Reply to this comment