Not as emo lately

Poker has been going better lately. I was stuck $7K for the month around the time of the last entry, and decided to finally take it easy for a few days. I began playing again recently, and as of right now I'm only stuck $1K. This month is most frustrating because I'm killing 2/4, but getting murdered at 3/6 and 5/10. I remember Dodgyken blogged about the same problem months ago, but couldn't relate to him at the time. It sucks. I can't even imagine what it's like to be OMGClayAiken and kill 25/50 (which is a very difficult game), but then run bad at 200/400.

I have been watching the presidential election pretty closely for the past year. I consider myself a Libertarian because I generally advocate having smaller government and more individual responsibility, but don't affiliate with any political party. While my views differ quite drastically from both of the two main candidates, I generally have sympathized more with Barack Obama. I feel like he is much more of an intellectual, and more charismatic than John McCain. However, lately Obama has really begun to turn me off. He has the most liberal voting record in the Senate, and always seems to believe government intervention is the best policy with any issue. Lately I've gotten the impression he is basically a soft socialist, which really scares the shit out of me. On the other hand, I'm not exactly an advocate of McCain's foreign policy. I'll probably be voting for a 3rd party candidate in November.

Tomorrow I begin piano lessons. My life needs more balance, and doing something musical definitely seems like a step in the right direction. I played alto saxophone for about 4 years during adolescence, and would say that overall I love music, but haven't played anything since. I decided not to take up guitar because it seems so cliche. If the lessons go well, I'll probably purchase a keyboard in order to practice at my apartment. One more activity that is definitely missing in my life is organized sports. About two months ago I talked about playing tennis regularly, but have been lazy about doing so since returning to Pittsburgh. I should set a goal to be able to play intramural tennis (or something similar) by next year so I start getting out and playing much more often.

Big hill to climb now

Three days ago I had another large loss in a HU match, this time -$5K at 5/10. I realized that I was in the worst downswing of my poker career. I was also off to the worst start ever for a month. I decided after this that it was time to take a break from 5/10 for now. I'm now on a mission to grind my results for the month back to even before I play anymore 5/10. I'm still an overall winner at these stakes and feel like my play has been fine. However, the losses at those stakes affect my psyche a little too much still.

I do believe that my game has gone astray the past month or two. I have made -EV calldowns and suicide bluff attempts. It's as if I have become the most impatient poker player in the world. Now that I've finally begun to realize this problem, I am working hard to correct it. I'm beginning to discuss hands with friends again, and occasionally watch instructional videos. It's not as if I have forgotten how to play poker, it is just that my game needs to be detailed or something.

I hope poker is going well for everyone. It seems as if many of my poker friends are losing an interest in poker (or at least losing an interest in blogging about it). I guess this is not surprising because poker resembles a hobby more than a job, and passion for hobbies often fades.

I made someone very happy

I lost $5800 to one guy yesterday at 3/6 NL heads up. I was actually stuck 12 buy-ins at the peak of the match. This seems unfathomable because I have never been stuck more than 5 buy-ins versus one opponent. Most fish do not give the opportunity to lose more than a few buy-ins. They are notorious for playing short matches, especially when they are up.

He (who will go unnamed in case I can ever get my money back) was clearly a fish that had exploitable tendencies. I misplayed a couple hands early in the match that doubled him up a few times. It is common to lose some money to even the worst players early in the match. Styles of opponents can be miscalculated early on. Unfortunately, as he got a larger stack and more confidence, he started becoming LAG. He was still taking a lot of poor lines and I had a good read on him, but his aggressive style created a very high-variance environment. I lost a lot of coolers, and had some of the sickest deep spots. Regardless of these incredibly frustrating elements, I felt that I was at least playing well enough to still have an edge.

The match overall lasted 5 hours and 750 hands, my longest single match to this date. By halfway through, I decided that it would be best if I had a poker friend sweating me. This would keep me more level-headed, and reassure me that I am making good decisions. My friends Ryan and John watched and discussed the match with me for about an hour each. This was a great experience, and is something I should do more often. Being able to talk out hands really helped me solidify my read, and make excellent decisions. It's also more difficult to tilt when you have the peer pressure of not wanting to make tilty plays in front of friends.

The ironic thing is, I am actually more confident about my poker game right now than I was 24 hours ago. I also have more of an enthusiasm to play poker, which I was really afraid I had lost over the past month or two. I really want to prove I am as good of a player as I think I am now.

School's back in session

I can't show a screenshot for my August results since the stats are on two computers still, but I finished +$8K over 13K hands. Considering the long break-even stretch I endured for the majority of the month, I cannot complain about these results. The stretch hurt my interest in poker and made me not play during days I had ample free time. This is my worst month since February, but the key is to simply get back on the horse. It is very beneficial that poker players measure success in months, because it allows one to mentally reset at the beginning of each month.

Classes started up last week. Strangely enough, I'm somewhat excited about academics for this semester. It has hit me that college is a big stage of my life that is about to end. I should make the most of what is left. I also want to prove I can get a respectable GPA if I apply myself. Since an adolescent, I've essentially done the minimum in school to get by.

We live in a society where we make the most of what we feel we're best at. Specialization. There are many, many areas of life in which I do not excel. I should be utilizing my strengths to the maximum. But have I? My 3.0 GPA in college certainly does not reflect that. It might be too late to completely reshape my academic accomplishments. However, it is not too late to turn around my work ethic in life.

I recently opened a Netflix subscription. I love movies, but realized recently that there are many highly-acclaimed films that I have never seen. I started out with renting Vanilla Sky, The Departed, and The Prestige. All three of them are excellent films that are intellectually challenging, and now I'm craving more. If you have any movies you'd like to recommend based on my taste in these three, let me know.