Well, maybe not as dramatic as it sounds. Basicly I dont have any motivation to play anymore. I had a goal to earn myself enough money to buy myself an appartment before I went back to school. Well, winning the sunday mill sort of took care of that. After the mill win I wanted to give 5/10 a real shot, with my new nice bankoll. I to this day think Im definitely good enough to beat most 5/10 games and definitely most HU regs on both ipoker and prima. Its kinda sad that I am quiting right now as I have such a deep deep understanding of this game. However, my shots at 5/10+ went soso, went good in the beginning but I kinda crashed and burned after that. I ran pretty shitty in alot of key spots and ended up playing my B or even C game way to often. This in combination with my horses running really shitty resulted in my bankroll dwindling and Im not rolled to play 5/10 anymore.
The dream of beating 10/20+ was the only thing motivating me and the hands on 2/4 and 3/6 ive played the last few days have been poorly played overall. Basicly, I have lost the love of the game. To be honest I think I probably lost it a long time ago, but ive keept going because poker for me was a necessary evil, I had to put in a couple of hours a day to pay the rent or to validate my existence or whatever. Well guess what, poker is not a necessary evil anymore. I have money and I have a plan for my life. I see no reason to push myself to play bad regs on 3/6 anymore when all it does is cause me stress and makes me unhappy.
Ive always been happy when running well and feeling bad when running like shit, but what made it all worth it above everything else was that playing poker in it self, regardless of results, made me happy. I enjoyed it imensely and poker is the one single thing I have spent the most time in my life on. More than starcraft, more than any other game/sport/hobby/job.
I have let myself completely drown in poker. During the last 3 years in general but the last 6 months in perticular, I have lived poker. I think about/play/study poker and that is pretty much all I do. Everything else that I do during my days has indirectly been connected to poker, things i deemed necessary to do to keep myself on my A-game. I think its this obsession that has made me as good as I am today, but it has also made me define myself as a poker player, both to myself and people around me. Everyone around me except my best friends and my family view me as "that poker guy", and this puts me on tilt. I remember years ago when I though it would be so cool to be able to say to people that I play poker professionally. Now, I am very reluctant to admit it to new people I meet, because A: people dont understand poker and B: I dont want to be that poker guy.
I have defined myself as a poker player and I want to be more. Poker has made me neglect things I used to do regularily. I have put all my self worth in my ability to destroy people in this game and I have neglected to develope other important characteristics. I dont read as much as I used to. I dont work out as much as I used to. I dont play the piano as much as I used to. I dont spend as much time with my family and friends as I used to. As much freedom as poker has given me, it has also chained me down in other ways. Im kinda like the guy/girl that where the most good looking/most popular in high school, neglecting to develope character and qualities because they are the king of the world and then five years later you see them working in the supermarket.
When you define your own life and person through poker, your selfworth and your self confidence will swing along with the natural swings in the game and that is for me unacceptable. I dont want to work in the proverbial supermarket.
Now this blog post probably makes things sound worse than they really are, but I made my decision 2 hours and I have been feeling genuine happiness since then. I am quiting poker. I leave about 20k online for now, uninstall all my poker programs and move on to other things. I wont go back to poker until I have found the love to play the game again. Until I feel the urge to play the game and not the urge to just win money I wont play a single hand of poker.
I will keep coaching, I will keep backing my horses and I will still frequent these forums alot so not much will change in that department. I just wont play. As for ept and Vegas I am still undecided. I might still go and I might not.
Yeah so I dont really update this blog anymore but meh. In recent news I didnt play almost anything in january, ended the month slightly in the red. February started out great, I finally in the mood to play again and I logged alot of hands playing 3/6-10/20. Peaked my profits at around 35k + an ept copenhagen package. Copenhagen was awesome, eventhough I busted on the first day it was a really fun experience and I loved hanging out with everyone there. Really made me wanna quialify for ept san remo and monte carlo.
However, after returning from copenhagen poker has really gone to shit. In a combination of playing sloppy/tilted/retarded and getting coolered and cold decked I think Ive lost around 30k, meaning ive basicly killed all my profits from february in like a week. So much of this was my own fucking fault, whenever I run bad it just creates a huge negative spiral for me where I just play worse and worse. Its so fucking pathetic how I can let losing affect me when I am basicly freerolling life.
I dont think I can ever completely stop myself from being affected by poor results, but what I can do is take good breaks when poker isnt treating me well. This would minimize the damage of downswings so much and it tilts me to no end that I dont do this more often. The main problem is that where I live right now there is really nothing much to do during the day. All I do is basicly work out/play the piano, play poker and play dota. I very easily get bored and feel useless if I dont put in a couple of hours of grinding. Playing retarded and tilty poker is an expensive cure for boredom though and I really need to stop doing it. So from now on I will be taking a break from poker alltogether for a week. Only exception being maybe some sunday donkaments but primarily the ept sattelites as I want to take every chance I have to win a seat.
Tomorrow im buying a guitar and some books to keep me ocupied. Wish me luck!
I just arrived to the hotel. Unfortunately being the fish I am I forgot to save the phone numbers fazi and soah gave me so I dont really know how to contact them. If any of you guys read this im in room 527. Call me up or something, Im starving!
Yaye! I just won a seat to the EPT Copenhagen. Spent probably like 2-3k on sattelites so I would have been pissed if I didnt win it. I think its going to be awesome, Copenhagen is a sick city and this will be my first major live donkament ever so Im really exited! I also hear alot of legendary lpers are coming like mezmerizeplz and nolan.
Seriously if you dont find this hysterical you have never been in an epic street poker match. This is not only a pretty solid analysis of certain game dynamics but its a perfect analogy and its hilarious in so many ways.
Im to lazy to randomly hassle my msnlist so ill just post it here, looking for 10k on FTP for 10k on stars. If you wanna do less than that its fine with me, only reputable members obv.
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