A new low.....

I was somewhat reluctant to post what I'm thinking at the moment, especially right after a session but it's a blog, its 1:30 am here and noone is really up and fuck it. I have had numerous "down/bad" times throughout my short, 1 year career but sometimes it just becomes too much. The pressure of having bills along with having to play alot under that pressure can just really break me down sometimes. The whole month has really been shitty for me but the past few days especially and I have been playing alot. It just seems like the harder I try and the more I play the less I get out of it or the more disappointment I get out of it is probably a better way of putting how I feel at the moment.

People who don't play poker and are reading this are probably like "Well it's gambling you can't always win" and some even think that you can never win long term, which is wrong. Pouring your heart and soul into poker and losing money equates to the real world/job equivelant of doing your dream job and failing. Or going into your regular job every day and no matter how hard you try or how well you perform, your boss will still yell at you and you will lose a portion of your pay. Imagine going into a typical office job and being docked pay ~30% of the time through no fault of your own, even if you did your job the best way possible.

The variance the past few months has just been killing me. Not just daily, run 2 buy ins below ev (expected value) but the long term effects it has on me mentally. I've ran below ev every single month since August I think or July. Blah blah ev I know but until you have run under ev for an extended period of time you really have no idea what it feels like. I'm not just talking about losing coin flips or villains always hitting flush draws. It's just sick stuff like running AK/KK into AA 13 times the past 8k hands and losing all of them. Losing a large portion of pots I'm playing with half stacked fish who either set mine successfully or flop two pair against my over pair/Top Pair Top kicker, leaving me no room to ever fold. Flop a set lose ever imaginable way possible.

I know I am rambling but I wanted to convey my point properly. So many people, I would venture to say at least 90% of the people who play for a living, for fun, as side income or whatever other reason have little to no understanding of true variance. I'm not talking just winning coin flips, AA vs KK etc..... I'm talking getting paid a certain percentage of the time when you do make a hand. I see so many regs that play horrible and just run so good its ridiculous. They set mine out of position, miss streets of value or just value overall. So many just play terrible and run good at situations that they miss play. I've just developed a large resentment and hatred towards so many players. I don't think its good for my game to hate certain people as it probably leads to me misjudging them or viewing them as inferior and playing improperly.

I read a post daily or weekly about someone having a "downswing" over 40k hands. What they fail to acknowledge or at least admit to themselves is that they have run hotter than the sun on the "upswing" in various ways and are just bad players. I'm far from a great player but I see so many of those posts and guys who are truly clueless. They think its perfectly standard to set mine every opportunity possible because they did so for the previous 100k hands and flopped a set ~15-20% of the time and even more important stacked an opponent some way or another a very high percentage of the time. I'm choosing set mining to really bitch about because the past couple days I have played a ton of 25 as well as some 50 and see regs set mining out of position, in 3b pots etc every opportunity they get and they continue to hit, so why would they know they are playing poorly.

The newest trend of the aggro 3b monkeys is also hilarious to me. I'm starting to see numerous guys with stats like 13/10 with a 10% 3bet. I haven't seen one of these guys thats a significant winner at all. All they care about is squeezing and 3betting every opportunity they get regardless of fish and multi-way hand strength etc. It normally goes like this: A reg will open, a fish will call and then the aggro 3bet monkey will squeeze just to squeeze with hands like JTs and other hands that are better to play in position and multi-way. These guys annoy me for various reasons but the main reason being that they so often squeeze out the fish and end up playing a pot vs a reg. This is probably the biggest reason why none of them are up a significant amount. They are terrible post-flop and 3b all there equity away preflop.

Tangent.........anyways....

Overall it just sucks. I'm feeling alot of pressure with real life stuff and then poker is sort of piled on top. I don't really have a choice or option but to just get up every day and play as much as I possibly can, as well as I can. I'm going to try and play 10+ hours every single day for however many days. If I have to drop and play $10nl just to book wins and gain confidence then so be it. I know and have known as a poker player you have to learn to accept, deal and move on during times like this. It's obviously easier said than done however.

I have been tilting, yelling, throwing shit more than I usually do which isn't good either but the built up pressure just gets to me after awhile. Normally I can take a couple of beats a sesh but when they continue to happen during long sessions and an extended period of time it just sort of builds up. You would think I would have gotten used to it by now but I want to succeed so badly at this, I think that's a big reason why I tilt so hard sometimes. I have been good about quitting when I know I am on tilt and it's effecting my play regardless of how vocal I am.

/Rant post but it's probably good for me to write this out as it helps me deal with it and holds me publicly accountable for things, which should in turn help me become a better person and poker player.