Absent-mindedness

I had an incredibly interesting day this past Thursday. Quick back story: I own an Infiniti G35 that has a built-in GPS navigation system. However, I own an external Garmin GPS that was used in my previous car. The Garmin was being stored in the center console of my Infiniti. I got my car detailed on Thursday. When it was returned to me a few hours later, the Garmin was missing. I instantly started freaking out. I quickly checked around my apartment and could not find it, so I called the owner of the Detail Shop. I told him about the situation and asked for a refund and said I would file a police report if I did not get one. He said he checked the shop and even his employee’s own car, and found nothing. The last time I had seen the GPS was in my car a few days earlier, but my memory about the GPS since then was fuzzy. I still felt confident my GPS was stolen.

Later that day, I went to a nearby track to run laps with 2 of my close friends. About 15 minutes after leaving the track, I realized that my cell phone was missing. Luckily, a guy walking his dog at the track found it and answered it. We got it from him shortly thereafter. This development made me severely question my judgment about the GPS. If I am this absent-minded, should I really be throwing around theft accusations? I have not called back the Detail Shop owner since then. I am completely baffled as to what the best decision is in this situation.

I’m in a breakeven stretch over the past 2-3 weeks. I haven’t struggled like this since February. I had started taking for granted the fact that I was always cranking out low variance results (in spite of only averaging about 20K hands a month). This stretch has been a harsh wake-up. I tend to get a little depressed when poker is going badly. The way I’ve tried combating depression this time around is to make an extra effort to do other things in life I enjoy. Going out, playing video games, watching movies I’ve been meaning to see for a while.

Time management

I have a huge problem with time management. I've create lists of the tasks I need to accomplish in the near future, but struggle to completely them in an efficient and timely manner. Hours of each day are wasted doing things that bring little benefit to my life. I need to start pushing out these wasteful periods of my day. The first step I've made is blocking myself from being able to access Facebook indefinitely. I should also halt myself from using AIM, as I feel that I waste way too much time making small talk on it.

I have come to the realization that so much of your time during the day is spent with simple maintenance. Hygiene, eating, cleaning your house, buying groceries, making basic income. These activities are simply done in order to maintain a basic condition and rhythm. They don't enhance your life from what it was in the recent past. Most of the things we do in life are not with intentions of progress, but just maintenance. The struggle becomes trying to maximize time spent making progression in life. I tell myself I care so much about self-improvement within various areas of my life. However, this requires hard work that allows little time to relax.

I have been running bad at 5/10 in particular the past week or so, and it is extremely frustrating. I have decided to buy out of both bets I made for poker results this month (one with WOW UR BAD, and one with Jethro). I have not been this frustrated about poker in over 6 months, even though I am still up a couple thousand on the month. There is nothing worse for an online cash player to run well at their lower stakes (2/4 and 3/6 for me), but run badly at their higher games.

Yes, I'm still alive

-I'm going to stop apologizing for my lack of blog updates. I was starting to feel guilty for it, but I now realize that blogging will only be enjoyable for me if I don't look at it as a chore or duty. I really enjoy expressing myself, but I don't wanna force myself to make half-assed entries with little substance. I used to criticize my friends who became lazy with blogging, but I realize it is not my place to do so.

-I'm sure a lot of you have been reading Raptor's blog lately. For those who don't, he is a top internet player who has kind of transformed himself lately. He has started a sudden focus on dieting, exercising a lot, trying new activities such as yoga. While I don't strongly associate myself with him, the changes he is trying to go through resemble my own. The past year or so, I've become very interested in self-improvement. I constantly try to find out what I don't like about myself, and figure out how I can change it. I also try to make a consistent effort to try new things, everything from learning the basics of Buddhism to keeping an open mind about new sports. Right now, it has been about trying to life a "healthy" lifestyle where I'm pursuing goals that reflect what I believe everyone needs to maximize happiness. Exercising, eating well, getting consistent sleep, etc. I believe that there is a good life equilibrium that we are still trying to figure out, but I'm trying my best to move closer to it.

-I defended my FTOPS HU title on Sunday. There were 1300+ entrants, a large increase from the 512 from last year. Full Tilt decided to allow byes this time, which is really lame. I ended up having to play a first round match, while the majority of entrants received a bye. I ended up winning my first 3 matches, but going down in the 4th round. I had a lot of fun and believe that the format is perfect for me. It is the one tournament that I get really excited about. I probably put more effort into the FTOPS HU event than any other single day of poker. In related news, my custom gold football jersey came in the mail for my FTOPS win. It is an authentic-style jersey. I plan on getting it custom framed and hanging it up in my apartment, as its a really cool way of displaying one of my big poker accomplishments.

-My trash talking in chat boxes needs to come to a halt. I am very courteous to fish, but against competent players I am often a dick. I don't know why I do it, must be some kind of insecurity issue. I had a friend of mine call me classless the other day, and it was a bit of a wake-up call. I've also come to the realization that my trash talking is probably -EV. It does occasionally put people on tilt, but the more common result is that it makes me focus more on the chat than the actual match. It also makes me steam a lot. If you catch me talking shit from now on during the middle of an actual match and show me proof, I will transfer you $10.

-My results in poker have continued to be very solid. I ran really well at 5/10 heads-up to start, but have come a little bit back down to earth. I definitely feel comfortable making 5/10 one of my regular games now. It has been necessary to do this. There has been a large influx of regs at mid-stakes HU lately, making it more difficult to get soft games. Attached are my results for July... better to post them later than never. In the mean time, I have quite a lot of hands I need to grind for the rest of August to qualify for our August $$$ bet. GOGOGOGOGO