Last week (starting Tuesday) started off decently well—I was pumped to have started a race to get to 10K hands, but I very quickly burned out. After a few days and 3500 hands, I was not doing so hot. I played a little bit over the next few days, and then on Saturday I was doing well for a few hours, and then after about 600 hands, I shot down like 5 buy-ins within 200 hands. Ugh. You can see an 800 hand session in my stats below which has that mice little blip in it.
But the major thing about this was that it made me realize how quickly I have been losing my confidence the past few months and how easily upset I get. I never used to be bothered by downswings, and I was always able to overcome them. But the past few months have been bad but greatly compounded by my getting so upset and not being able to jump back into it.
So I took a few days off and tried to figure out why, and it's because I'm just scared to death. I'm banking on poker because I just have absolutely no other options. I'm both scared of failing (since poker is kind of the only option) and I hate having a life that I don't like and a life that makes me feel like a failure. I know from my records that the time I play best is when I am happy and confident in my game. I have to be sure I am going to know the right play in order to know what the right play is, basically. But lately, even when I go in pumped, it takes very very little to tilt me or upset me or otherwise incapacitate me (poker wise).
So I've been trying to figure out what to do with my life. I don't think that there's a way to “fix” my poker without “fixing” my life. And I'm banking on poker to fix my life, but it's so much tougher because I'm relying on it so much—so this circle obviously isn't going to work! I spent over a year looking for a job I didn't hate, and the only job I got was dealing, which I hated, and I only got that job because my dad lived next store to the owner of the card room. So I'm kind of inclined to think I can't do anything else besides poker, as tough as poker has been lately. This has made me consider the logistics of just taking what money I can scrounge up and just going back to Vegas like right now, and just jumping in and seeing if I make it, because I hate where I am with my life and I have no other choices. Even with my tilting and difficulties, I still average 1.9ptbb and if I played even a mere 20K hands a month of 1-2 NL online, with rakeback that would still be $2000-$2500, which is much more than I'd need to live on, and I'd play some live too, which is soooo soft.
But that just seems way too risky, especially since I don't know for sure that I'll “feel better” once I'm back down there, which means there's no guarantee I'll play even acceptable poker. And it would be a psychological final blow for me, to go back to Vegas and fail once again, so I don't want to go back unless I know for sure I can stay.
So I'm back to square one, scared to death to do any thing, and unable to continue where I am. Awesome. Oh, and two of my closest friends are going through about the shittiest time in their lives too. Double awesome.
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