Well the past few weeks have been pretty miserable. I got a cold my last day in Vegas and I was OK but not great for the next few days, and then around Thursday night a few weeks ago I just tanked and have been literally in bed all the time since then. Because I wasn't playing nearly as much, I started to think about all the problems I've been having when I have played and wrote down a bunch of adjustments to try. I got a few thousand more hands in after being sick, and as you can see, my strategy did not work AT ALL. The point where my red line starts to uncontrollably tank is the point where I started to try some of these new moves, and clearly they didn't work! I thought I could adjust to the aggro regs by getting even more aggro, but obviously the risk/reward ratio wasn't there, so now I know the right adjustment is just to tighten back up and play more straightforward. Everybody is playing now how I used to play six months ago, so none of “my moves” work anymore and I just need to buckle down and play tighter, and get paid because none of the regs will believe me.
Also, after talking with a friend a while back about this, and after being bed-ridden for the past few weeks, I've decided I can't make enough money playing online to support myself. I just can't put in enough hands that are my A game. I never had nearly as much trouble with consistency in my play as I have had when I am trying to make myself play as opposed to when I just play for fun and love of the game. If I am going to make a living off of poker, I need to play higher levels, because I simply can't put in the quality of play or the sheer number of hands required to make it at the level I'm currently at. And in order to play at those levels, I need at least another twenty grand! So for now, I am going to play when I want, which may be a lot or a little, and try to figure out WTF to do...
Of course now I am back to square one, and I had been looking for a job for about 15 months before I found the only job I could get! So I'm at a loss for what to do. I'm exceedingly frustrated because I really just want to be self-sustaining, and I think I have a lot of very useful knowledge and ability, but I can't seem to find anybody else who thinks it's worthwhile without on-the-clock experience. My mom has suggested I apply for grad school in Vegas, and that seems like an OK idea and it would get me back in Vegas. But it also just seems like it's simply putting off my problems. Now if there was a way to put off my problems for about 70 years, I'd be all for it, but when they come back in just a few years, and possibly with student loan debt, that to me seems unwise—but then again, I've always been too scared to do anything.
Also, I got a ticket yesterday for going 33 in a 25 zone (which I thought was a 30 zone). I'm not saying I actually was going 33, but that's what the ticket says. I am going to contest the ticket in court, since statistically over half the time the officers don't show up in court, which means the state cannot prove with a “preponderance of evidence” (i.e. the officer's testimony) that I was speeding, and the fine is dropped. I also found a free ebook and a bunch of websites with various ways of increasing your chances. If, for example, I can somehow get my court date between Christmas and New Years, there's even less of a chance he'll be there. Normally, I would just pay the fine and let it go, but I truly feel a sense of inequity with this particular ticket and, as you have read above, I have nothing better to do with my time, apparently—and of course my official reason of I wasn't actually speeding.
So I'm a bit depressed and in a bit of a foul mood, but at least I feel somewhat awake for the first time in two weeks, and my throat doesn't make me want to kill myself whenever I talk or swallow. And that's not nothing! As far as poker goes, you can see I lost about $250 in my actual online play, but thanks to rakeback, a sit-n-go that I played and got second in, and a friend's home game that I won twenty bucks at, I'm only down $40 for the past few weeks. Of course, add that to the 300 I was down after my Vegas trip, and the seven hundred I was up before that trip, I'm up a whopping $300 in the past two months.
Rolling in money, obviously.
Also, my dad and step mom left for a 3 month vacation two days ago, and I hadn't seen either of them in about a month. I really wanted to see my dad before they left, but understandably they didn't want to catch the horrible cold I had while they were out of the country, which is already a big stress on one's system.
So, here's my stats. The first four thousand hands I played in the space of two or three days right after I got back from Vegas, and the rest of it was spread out over the past week and a half while I've been sick. You can see my brilliant new adjustments in the nice red line curve that starts at about hand 5500. I changed up my game because I was doing poorly, but as I can clearly see from hand 4000 to hand 5500 I was actually playing OK and just losing a lot of showdown pots, which is generally just bad luck although I could have a giant fundamental leak that's popped up, so I think I was unnecessarily adjusting, and that I really just need to buckle down and tighten up, and just play better cards in the spots where the regs are going to have much wider ranges.
-Max
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