I arrived back home late last night after having been on the road for three weeks. The state of exhaustion I found myself in once I finally walked past the door after over 9 hours of traveling and two nights of awful sleep had to have been top 5 lifetime for me. I walked into my apartment and basically immediately collapsed on the ground. I had intel that there was an amazing PLO game going at my local casino, but I didn't trust that I'd be able to play anywhere near my A game in such a state.

I slept like a rock. Possibly the first night I've ever scored a 100% sleep score on my sleep app.

Overall, it was a good trip, just shy of great. Outside of poker, it was really nice to spend some time with my family the first few days of the trip and then later meet up with old friends from law school multiple times once I was in the Baltimore/DC area. I also got to do some neat stuff in DC that I enjoyed.

Poker-wise, cash games went awesome overall, especially in PLO. I finished a big winner for the trip in cash games per amount of hours played but didn't put in as much volume as I'd like. It's becoming pretty obvious that my strongest game/highest hourly game is PLO, which is ironic because at the end of the day I still think I enjoy NLHE more. I feel like I have a decent-sized edge in any PLO game in which I sit, while in NLHE at the 5-T level I usually feel like I have an edge but it feels nowhere near as pronounced. That being said, that's probably largely due to the fact I've played way more PLO than NLHE over the last year and my NLHE cash game is a little rusty.

Tournaments were ultimately very disappointing but at least reaffirmed my belief that I'm becoming a stronger and stronger tournament player and it's only a matter of time before I make some noise in mtts. The first tournament, the WSOPC 6 Max, with under 20% field left I went from near CL to busto over the course of 15 absurd minutes involving AA <J3 and AK < 88 for heaps aipf after I thought I had played some of my best tournament poker ever. The next tourney, the Big O, I ran godawful in an amazingly soft field. The next tourney, the Monster Stack, was basically identical to the 6 Max, where I thought I played awesome and built a huge stack with 20% field left only to lose in a set over set situation to the one guy at the table who covered me. Just absurd. In the WSOPC ME, I never got anything going, being super card dead then busting in somewhat of a cooler.

At Borgata, I was fortunate to cash in the $560 on one bullet despite a pretty average run of cards, ultimately busting on a flip shoving the NFD with 8% field left, getting hero called in a spot most villains would fold, and then not getting there. Then there was the OE tournament detailed above, where I ended up being the stone bubble for the FT/ITM.

So, it felt like I was very close multiple times to something big happening and that I played very good tournament poker in general (with the exception of the OE day two mistakes detailed above). Standard mtt experiences I guess but I have faith that with volume these cruel endings will cease and in their stead will come big things. Problem is, I have no idea what tourneys are coming up I'd have any interest in.

Most importantly re: the trip, I was able to escape what had turned into a funk at home, where I was feeling bored and restless and in poker dealing with a prolonged streak of runbad since mid-WSOP. I feel much better about everything now and am very grateful I did something spontaneous (a rare event for me) and headed to Baltimore.


Now that it doesn't cost me $12/day to use the Internet on my computer, I'm able to type up rambly posts like the OE one above again replete with HHs. Thanks for the kind words, as always.

Whoops, it was 8k-16k (obv).

Glad to hear the trip overall was very solid.

Agree with the Stud8 hand analysis, but the O8 one seems like a great spot to shove. Especially if you're trying for a nice score vs avoiding the bubble...which I know you are.

Keep on trucking bud.

I'm feeling energized again. The last few days of my East Coast trip (getting sick, barely sleeping, making a long drive home while tilted after stone bubbling a tournament) took a lot out of me and I slept a lot over the last couple of weeks to compensate. Fortunately, I was also able to play a decent amount of live poker and did pretty well, with the games at home much improved since when I left for the East Coast trip. I've clawed about halfway out of my mid-WSOP and beyond downswing and my #s are looking pretty good again over my last 125 hours of live cash game play, especially in PLO.

I also found the time to catch up on some other things. I finally watched the Jinx and thought it was great. Also started Bojack Horseman and am about halfway through the first season and loving it. I also started and finished one of the best books I've read recently, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, by Oliver Burkeman. I'm hoping to do a detailed write up about it as part of this thread's series of book recommendations (apologies for not having produced more of those yet).

Finally, I've started lifting again, and it feels great. A friend taught me how to lift in college and I was really into it during the early-mid 2000s. Once I started law school, I stopped going to the gym on a regular basis and gained a lot of weight. Years later (2011), I returned to the gym for some intensive cardio, lost all the weight over several years, but I didn't start lifting again until this week. There's something about lifting that's very empowering and I'm hoping to spend a lot of time over the coming months at the gym. I don't necessarily want to get jacked, but I'd like to build some more muscle, get toned, and reduce my body fat %. I weighed my lowest adult weight ever this morning (161); ideally, I'd like to be a decently muscular 165-166 lbs.

Been playing a decent amount on bovada, mostly stud8 cash and mtts. Stud8 cash is going decently well, although it's mostly a labor of love & learning as I doubt my hourly at 5-10 (highest stake available) is greater than $20. Mtts have been pretty meh lately, but I feel like I'm not playing as well in them as I was a few weeks ago, maybe because the incentive to improve before a live tournament series is gone. Had a potential sweat developing last night in the nightly $50 $30k gty, but ended up busting shortly after the ITM bubble burst in a four way aipf AQ < AQ + KJ + KT.

More and more, I'm becoming convinced that I'd like to transition out of full-time poker sooner rather than later. I still love the game, and I have no regrets about leaving my job, but I have no interest past the short term in relying on poker as my exclusive means of income, especially as I expect the future poker landscape to make it increasingly difficult to make $. As such, this thread will probably become more crushing life-oriented as I work towards the transition. As part of the transition one of my immediate goals is I'm going to try to do more and think less.

Had an awful few sessions on bovada this weekend playing stud8 cash. After making a large withdrawal a few weeks ago, my balance is now perilously low due to the big hit. I don't want to deposit more $ on the site, so I'm going to have to risk going busto on there if I proceed playing.

I started tracking my hours on bovada a week ago, and they ended up being much more than I would have otherwise guessed, which leads me to think the same is probably true as to my volume on there over the last few months. At no point have I thought that my hourly on the site given the meager stakes I'm playing (5-10 fixed limit, $10->$50 mtts) is greater than $20/hr, and now I'm wondering if it's even been that high. Given I'm more interested right now in transitioning out of full-time poker rather than continuing to improve at poker, I should probably start scaling back my bovada play considerably if not withdraw my remaining balance. Or at least that's what I've been writing as to where my priorities lie. My actions over the last few months have suggested otherwise, especially through all the grinding of small stakes on bovada where there are significant opportunity costs with regard to other potential uses of my time. I feel like it's time to put up or shut up as to how I spend my time.

On the bright side, I had an excellent week results-wise playing live cash and, despite the bovada hit, had a very profitable week. Had three big winning sessions in a row including a +$5k session and I'm now about ~$1k shy of having clawed out of my downswing since mid-WSOP, which turned into my largest downswing ever. Live action locally has picked up significantly, which is a great relief.

Interesting. What are the candidates for next career choice?

My thoughts have been all over the place, but here are some possibilities (in no particular order):

a) Return to doing freelance legal research and writing on behalf of other attorneys and expand that into a full-time business. Pros: -very low fixed costs + overheard, -already have a client base and believe I could gain new clients quickly, -lots of experience and talent with this kind of work, -would be able to retain a lot of flexibility in terms of when, how, and how much I work. Cons: -probably not something I'd be interested in doing for the longterm, -afaik it's an untested business model in Ohio and it might be difficult to build a large client base, -decent amount of potential for stress due to all the deadlines, -lack of control over the kinds of cases I'd be working on for at least awhile as I'd be doing work for other attorneys on the kinds of cases they've chosen to pursue, -lack of full creative control.

b) Open either my own solo litigation practice or a small shop with other attorneys I know seeking a change. Pros: -direct interaction with clients and would offer a better chance of making a positive impact on people's lives, -much higher income ceiling relative to (a), -relative to option (a) probably a better way to keep a lot of options open in the legal world for the longterm, -would help me develop into a more fully-rounded attorney, -more potential for exhilarating work experiences, -full creative control over my work and the direction of my caseload. Cons: -gaining clients might be very difficult/would require a lot of networking at the outset, -would require a much larger initial and ongoing monetary investment than (a), -potential for very high stress, -relative to (a) much greater risk of falling flat on my face as well as struggling to make a good living.

c) Open a small business.

d) Branch into an entirely new career, such as programming or database management. On the other end of the spectrum, I'd also be interested in counseling or teaching. The latter two seem like they'd be easier to start anew than the former two.

e) Seek a history-oriented job. I have a history major and a very strong undergraduate pedigree in the field. Not interested in going into academia, however.

f) Seek writing opportunities and try to become a full-time writer. One of my goals in life has been to write a book and now would be a good time to go for it. I think a career as a writer could be very fulfilling but I would worry about supporting a family through it.

I think my "clifton strengths" are dead-on: <<Intellection. Learner. Strategic. Empathy. Input.>> These help explain why I've been able to find a lot of success in poker despite not having the typical poker personality (I'm an INFJ, most poker players are INTPs or INTJs). Ideally, I'd like to find a career that would make good use of those strengths and help me feel like I'm doing something to advance social utility. I realize the above options are laughably diverse but they're all ideas that interest me and through which I could envision myself being successful and happy.

karamazonk book recommendation #2: The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, by Oliver Burkeman

The basic premise of The Antidote is that it's our striving for happiness and refusal to co-exist with negative thoughts that leads to much of our unhappiness. It suggests that a better approach to happiness is to learn how to accept and embrace those things we try to avoid, such as uncertainty, failure, and, perhaps the greatest elephant of human consciousness, the fear of death. The book is one of many books I've read recently espousing a stoic and buddhist worldview, i.e., a perspective on how to approach life focused on the acceptance of suffering and acquiescence in the face of those things we can't control.

The subtitle is a bit misleading. While it's true that The Antidote over multiple instances decries "the secret" and books espousing the power of unconditional positive thinking, all of that is simply incidental to the book's greater discussion of why a better approach to happiness is one that involves peacefully co-existing with unpleasant realities rather than trying to conquer or avoid them. My best guess is that the publishers assumed a provocative subtitle that helps distinguish this book from other self-help books would draw more interest in the book.

I remember a conversation with a friend I had many years ago while we were attending law school. It was one of those late night, deep conversations about the meaning of life that arise every so often in early adulthood only to fade in frequency over time as we realize it's taboo to discuss the mystery of human existence. Anyways, something my friend said that night has always stuck with me. He was telling me about how, rather suddenly during a lecture, a college professor of his had a sober moment of self-relection. She had told the class that at many different points during her life there was some thing she was working towards, be it publishing her first book or getting married or having X amount saved for retirement, where she felt "if only this thing happened" she would be "done," i.e., her happiness would be secured for good. Those events kept happening, but contrary to what she expected happiness continued to be elusive.

That story resonated with me immediately, and it still does. I've been guilty many times of over-estimating the impact of certain events on providing a long-lasting boost to my happiness. Fortunately, I've also been wrong in anticipating the level of suffering that I have experienced as a result of less happy events. The truth is, hedonic adaptation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill) is a real phenomenon. We have a baseline level of happiness that can prove very resistant to our (often misguided, according to the book) efforts to elevate it. We can never be happy all the time, nor, as the book points out, would we really want to. Those unhappy times help give flavor and meaning to the happier times.

The book addresses stoicism and buddhism in depth, as both schools of thought provide abundant support for the power of co-existing peacefully with suffering. The stoics advised the "premeditation of evils," i.e., envisioning the worst possible case scenario and preparing mentally for it. This was less to protect the individual from the occurrence of the event than it was about helping the individual to learn to live with the looming possibility feared by the individual. Often, when what might seem like the "worst case scenario" happens, it turns out to be not nearly as big a deal as our anxious mind had feared.

For example, partaking in an experiment influenced by the work of psychologist Albert Ellis, a modern-day stoic whose work emphasized confrontation of fear-inducing events to reduce their power, Burkeman (the author) hops on a public bus one day and announces loudly every stop upon arrival. While, at first, Burkeman feels a large amount of anxiety as he wonders what the people surrounding him must be thinking about this fellow passenger acting strangely, he realizes quickly few people have even noticed and that even those who have are hardly bothering him with their raised eyebrows and bemused glances. The embarrassment he feels goes from high to minimal and then disappears completely as it transforms into amusement, as he realizes being perceived as a weirdo by a group of complete strangers is no big deal. In the end, it's actually an empowering experience. As Ellis' work illustrated, this "it's not the end of the world, after all" reaction of people to the occurrence of undesirable events happening is quite typical, even in response to extraordinary events. Extrapolated to a more profound application, while an event we greatly fear such as the death of a loved one might be tragic and lead to significant short-term suffering, we will most likely find that it hasn't completely disrupted our world and cut off all future happiness as we had expected during our darkest and most fearful moments. Under Ellis' view, almost no events are truly terrible, just "undesirable;" we do a very poor job of realistically evaluating how profoundly these events will affect our lives. In reality, life goes on.

The book also discusses at length how uncertain life is and highlights how foolish it is to strive for certainty and control as we so often do. In this discussion, the book addresses the book The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts, which I was inspired to read immediately after finishing The Antidote and found a wonderful read.

We like to think that our retirement savings are 100% secure, that there's a zero percent chance a comet will destroy this earth at any given moment, that mass shootings only happen to strangers, that with our best efforts our security can be guaranteed. In reality, as buddhism emphasizes, the nature of the world is constant change, and change is the one constant there is. As I write this my body ages and your body is aging; I am closer to death now than when I started writing this sentence, whether I like it or not. Infinite natural phenomena are occurring around us that are changing the composition of the universe and defy human control. I am connected to every other piece of matter in the universe, and as my actions affect the universe so all the actions of the universe affect me. These are all facts and yet we constantly try to ignore these basic realities and their implications. Instead of fighting for security, permanence, stability, etc. and being disappointed when we ultimately learn these things defy our control, we should accept the changing and unknowable universe surrounding us for it is and learn to live without the illusion of a control we don't actually possess.

Unfortunately, I'm running out of time to continue writing, and I have only these few tiny slices of the ideas explored by the book to contribute. The book contains so much more good stuff, including one of the best and ultimately most comforting explorations of death I've ever countered. I wish I could do the whole book justice, but hopefully I've discussed enough of its content your interest is sufficiently piqued to check it out.

On an additional note, while The Antidote might sound like a downer, I found it to be quite the contrary. Rather, I found it an inspirational and comforting read, the kind of spiritual lodestar I'd been seeking, even moreso than another book to which I had the same reaction discussed itt, Waking Up. In addition, the book is pretty hilarious at times; the author approaches everything with a sense of humor and a witty and fun voice. I smiled a lot of the time while reading it.

The book has enriched my perspective on life and I'm grateful for having discovered it. I am happy to recommend it.

Ty for the review. I've read some death and dying literature and find it a fascinating topic. Thinking about death and suffering seems, paradoxically, to help me appreciate life more.

Since we talked this summer I've been wanting to check out a book on Buddhism/stoicism. This one sounds like a good candidate.

Sent from my XT1031 using 2+2 Forums

Interesting, again. Love that you're all over the place on career options. Would love to chat irl some time. Re the law options, can you blend the two? Start be doing the legal writing and add the litigation as you go along? Basically, do (a) and work on (b) in all your free time
I also love that you're open to teaching, history related jobs, etc. I need to think outside the box career 2.0. I kinda have junior college professor in mind as my 2.0 or semi-retirement.

I actually ordered the book a few days ago based on your previous recommendation. Thanks for the full write-up, sounds like a good read.

Good recommendation. Will definitely check this book out soon.

Thanks, bob! Excellent interview with squid, btw, really enjoyed reading it as well as the follow-up in the new thread.

Some books exploring similar ideas I recommend:
(Buddhism)
The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts
The Misleading Mind by Karuna Cayton
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thích Nhất Hạnh
Waking Up by Sam Harris

(Stoicism)
The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday

Yes, definitely, and I could also go the other way and pursue (b) but during slow times seek freelance opportunities with other attorneys.

As for chatting irl, sure. I always post about my trips in here, so if we're ever in the same place lmk.

Thanks a lot for sharing, machi. Seriously, nothing makes me feel better than knowing this thread has had some kind of an impact on others. Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks, xazel!

Had a rough weekend of poker a couple weekends ago, with three big losing sessions in a row. Then ended up breaking even last week after starting the week on a +$3k swing. Prior to that little rough patch, I had grinded ~95% out of my cash game downswing results-wise, but now I'm back in the rut a bit. Nevertheless, I'm still +$60/hr over my last couple hundred hours plus of play, so that's at least encouraging; and, I don't feel as much like I'm in a downswing as I did previously, so mentally I feel fine.

Truthfully, while I have definitely been running poorly (I think I ran ~$7k below EV in allin pots over the last couple weeks, and on top of that I had to fold a flopped monster hand a huge number of times due to terrible runouts) I also don't think I have been playing my best poker lately. One indicator of when I'm not playing my best is my level of attention on hands I'm not involved in, and that was tremendously low over the last couple of weeks and something I will have to work on. My focus and awareness at the table are two of my strong suits and I need to take as much advantage of them as I can.

I'm starting to feel my competitive fire to play my absolute best coming back. That being said, I'm probably going to have to start traveling a little bit if I want to put in the hours. While several really good games have broken out locally recently, they have been limited in quantity and many days of the week now it's difficult to find a local game worth playing in.

Outside of poker, I've been watching a lot of quality TV and doing a decent amount of reading and have been enjoying both greatly. Now that my ipod has been fixed, I've also resumed going to the gym regularly. Starting to feel some slight gains with my weight lifting practice, hoping to get toned by Christmas time. Since I'm nearly busto on bovada, I've barely played on there, and that's actually been a good thing as I've been attending to a bunch of little errands I had been putting off with this extra burst of free time. More and more I'm convinced that from an opportunity cost perspective the bovada grind just isn't worth it if I'm going to confine my play on there to small stakes.

I still have a lot of progress to make when it comes to doing more and thinking less. Had a promising potential dating situation lined up with a girl and then let it fade into nothing because I wasn't feeling totally mentally comfortable with starting up on that grind again. Not proud of that, as I think it's better to "feel the fear and do it anyway." I'm hoping to start doing at least one meetup activity a week, get back into dating, maybe start volunteering, maybe take cooking or yoga classes, etc. I'm also hoping to do some writing over the next few weeks and have done a little bit of creative writing over the last week.

Finally, I did some coaching recently and it was enjoyable and rewarding. Hoping to do more of it.

Watched the final episodes of the 2015 WSOP Main Event last night and it was both motivational and heart-breaking. Motivational in that I found myself really wanting to experience something approaching the thrill of closing in on the November 9. Heart-breaking in that it made me reflect on my own disappointing experience in the tournament this summer and then made me think about all of the other recent demoralizing poker experiences I've had.

I've been in a funk for a few months and I've been struggling to shake it off. Truthfully, I've never been less happy at the poker table in my life. As I've stated or at least hinted at before, I think a lot of this has to do with the "narrative" underlying my year. The year started on an amazing note when I ended up crushing over several months in a daily, amazing action local 5-10 PLO game that emerged almost out of nowhere, a seeming gift from the heavens. Then, I headed to Vegas for the WSOP and immediately binked my first five figure tournament score chopping a PLO tournament, then followed that up a few days later with a cash in the $1500 Six Max (a very meaningful one as I had pretty much stone bubbled it the previous year), and then won something like my first nine cash game sessions. I was on cloud nine and I expected even greater things to come.

Then, in the blink of an eye, I fell down to earth very fast, with very bruising impact. I played in a bunch of amazing PLO games at the Venetian only to get crushed almost every session, I suffered some absurd beats and coolers in both those games and tournaments, and then, with a chance to save the second half of my summer, I played 26 hours in my first Main Event only to fall just short of the ITM finish line after having survived my stack getting crippled multiple times. All in all during those last few weeks of the WSOP I lost a lot of money. After that experience, I travel to Baltimore and find myself go from CL to busto in under 15 minutes in a WSOPC six max event with 20% of the field left, and then have the same thing happen when I go from a mega stack to busto in the monster stack event with 1/3-1/4 field remaining getting set over set by the one person at the table who covers me. I then stone bubble an OE tournament at Borgata. All the while during this time I continue to run as bad as I've ever run in cash games, being on the wrong end of every big hand against big hand confrontation for weeks and finding almost no good value spots arise.

After the Baltimore tournaments, I started a nice cash game run at Maryland Live that I extended after I returned home. Within a few weeks, I had recovered almost all of my losses since mid-WSOP back after having reached a downswing nadir that was previously unfathomable. Then, very suddenly again, I had several big losing sessions in a row, including a few sessions which had started off extremely well then finished awfully. I also pretty much busted my roll on bovada. I ended up having a lousy October results-wise. I know I've already posted about each of these individual episodes in the thread but I'm summing them up to provide some context for my current mental state.

I feel stuck in a negative mentality despite the fact that I've actually posted pretty good, decently profitable (~$50/hr) results over my last ~300 hours of play (it was the 100-150 hours preceding those that were utterly brutal), even though I haven't run too well during that span and also am aware I could have played several hands that involved me losing big pots much better.

As irrational as it might be to let the negative variance get to me, especially given the fact that results-wise I've still had a great year, this narrative of decline for 4.5 months has taken its toll on my mental state, my confidence, and my enjoyment of the game. In addition, I'm feeling more bored and frustrated with the local poker scene than ever, yet I'm also not interested enough in traveling right now to make any plans to do so. Between all of these factors I've found my enthusiasm for poker hurting hard and I've often been miserable or mind-numbingly bored at the table. My sheer enjoyment of the game has always been one of my greatest assets and right now it's close to absent. In addition, in life I keep coming up short of my own expectations for myself in my attitude and how I spend my time. I'm still stuck in thinking mode rather than doing mode despite resolving almost every day to try to make some progress.

Given all of this I haven't had much interest in updating this thread. I try not to complain for the sake of complaining and I fear that's what I am doing when I write posts like this. More than anything, I'm bothered by my own lack of maturity in dealing with this unfavorable swing. I understand logically negative variance is simply part of the game, and I've had a significant hand in my own demise having many times during the stretch played much worse than I am capable of (something which the negative variance has made me more prone to do), yet I am concerned that due to my own limitations it will take some extended rungood before my mental state is cured. I'd prefer to get out of the funk without having to rely on cards falling my way. Ideally I want to care only about playing my best and staying committed to a system that has me playing my A game as frequently as possible independent of results.

One recent positive in poker is that I can feel my nl cash game coming back to form as I'm shaking off some mental rust after all the plo this year. I'm trying to use that as my motivation to play right now when my enjoyment of the game is at an all-time low. I can at least still appreciate the intellectual challenge of rediscovering my nl A-game.

I'm not looking for sympathy and I apologize to the extent this comes across as a long whine or rant. My main reason for posting right now is to provide some explanation as to why I've been increasingly silent itt as to my poker saga and the crushing life saga: a lack of progress in both and a feeling of paralysis as to both. I'm also posting because it helps me be more accountable to myself and take a more objective, healthier view of things; I already feel a little silly complaining about recent results given my windfall earlier this year. I have faith things will get better, but I will need to do a better job steering things that direction.

Baby steps. Move forward today, or this week. Thanks for sharing. This thread is still truly inspiring. Hearing the struggles is also good, imho.

Stay motivated and it'll turn around! You're one of the main inspirations for me when I'm going thru a rough patch.

"... a downswing nadir that was previously unfathomable."

This is one of the reasons I enjoy this thread. Come for the poker, stay for the prose.

And for what it's worth, I find nothing irrational about our mental state being affected by negative variance, at least when we're talking about downswings of notable length and/or ugliness. The players with the strongest mental games aren't the ones who never have a negative emotion; that's impossible because we're human and we all feel it. The strongest are the ones who have learned how to recognize and accept it, not allow it to affect our play/decisions (or know when to avoid playing if we feel it will), and eventually move past it.

Of course, I know you know all of this. (Buddhism/Tommy Angelo 101, right?) Just offering a friendly reminder, and assuring you there's no need to apologize for writing honest posts. They're what make a thread worth reading.

I value the honesty of your post and ultimately believe you're being responsible in documenting your current mindset. It's easy to become overwhelmed by negativity at this time of year, especially when you're conscious of triggers for "regret" such as the WSOP. Getting out of your funk independently of variance is definitely the best approach, as you say yourself; at times such as these, I often try my best to objectify poker as a "game": not only to distance myself from its negative emotional energy, but also to help me recognise its intellectual worth as a set of controlled strategic exercises. While it's tough doing so, when this game is so enmeshed in your life, just the act of trying to do so can make a difference, not to mention distract you from results. It mightn't hurt to be a little easier on yourself, at the moment, too; I believe most would agree that you've already achieved a great deal this year, not from just poker talent alone, but also from hard work and sustained periods of constructive thinking.

I can relate a lot here. I have a (maybe bad?) habit of being hard on myself. I've also had quite a few close calls in tourneys & cash games this year that could have gone very well for me. And I'm also dealing with health issues (IBD), and it's too easy for me to feel sorry for myself.

You already have a recipe for success. It isn't always easy to keep rinsing and repeating what works; sometimes it gets boring, and we're humans. We don't always like monotony. Plus, a lot of us got into poker for the lack of monotony & the freedom of setting our own schedule.

Go back to what works. Go back to the basics. Reread notes, books, articles, hand histories. Revisit what made your mental game so strong. Brush up on your fundamentals so you can gain some confidence. (These are all activities I tend to lean on when I fall into a funk or a similar mental state to the one you're currently experiencing. Maybe something different works for you, though.)

It helps to vent, especially in threads like this. I know I do it from time to time. It just helps to get the thoughts out and visible, regardless of who reads it. Keep your head up and looking forward. You'll bounce back from this. Good luck.

Thanks for the support and kind words, pokerodox and xazel! I already feel better about things. Getting that post out of my system helped.

Well put, machi, and I agree with everything you wrote. Some of the people I admire the most in the poker world are those who seem to have infinite patience for negative variance. I'm far from that level of equanimity but rather than be dismayed by my awareness of that fact I think a better attitude is to be excited by the prospect of further progress.

Have you read The Antidote yet?

Thanks, TJO. The bolded strikes me as a helpful attitude. I've been approaching nl cash games from that kind of perspective lately, thinking through hands more rigorously at the table and analyzing everything from a more intellectual point of view rather than operating on an auto pilot mode that relies heavily on past experience. In other words, I've been more focused mentally on each decision, I'm more present, and I am really thinking through things rather than going through the motions (by going through the motions, I mean doing something "because it's standard" rather than doing something because I've decided through force of focused thought that it's optimal which, incidentally, also happens to be standard). This sensation of creative improvisation is a big part of why nl has been more rewarding to me than plo lately, as in plo lately most decisions feel more automatic and less creative.

One of my goals is to increase my mental strength and patience to the point where I always bring this more active, more present-focused, more intellectual mindset to the table no matter what game or circumstances.

Thanks for popping in, Jay. I think following your advice would make sense, as I've taken that attitude during past funks and found success. I've done some off-the-table work lately but I could certainly be doing a lot more. And, venting has definitely helped, both in the mental relief provided by allowing my anxiety to breathe outside of my head and in seeing all of the support itt from players who have experienced the same frustration.


On another topic, I finally made a deposit on DraftKings today after having been intrigued by DFS for a long time. I've always been a huge fan of fantasy sports and funny enough it was only because of fantasy sports that I ever became a fan of real sports as a kid. I started a league in 8th grade at a time when fantasy sports were much less popular than they were now because I had an obsession with sports statistical data that persists to this day. I have many memories of poring over the newspaper when I was a kid and analyzing sports data endlessly. It's part of my "input" strength/personality characteristic (http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/688/input.aspx).

I'm viewing DK as a replacement of sorts for bovada, and I actually think it will be more profitable if I can do it right. That being said, I will have to be careful with how much time I'm putting into it, as I tend to get very obsessive with such things and the last thing I want to do is derail progress in the crushing life saga by getting plunged into a timesuck or have my live poker hours decline because of DFS. I also don't want it to be a distraction at the table and hope to monitor sweats infrequently. Consistent with those goals, I wanted to post about the development itt to help remind myself of the importance of keeping myself in check as I pick up this new hobby.

So far, so good, as I made a single NBA lineup today that finished ITM in 3/3 contests.

Thanks for the update and good luck with fantasy! As an elite fantasy sports competitor, I'd advise you to develop strong irrational attachments to players, teams, and uniforms (especially green). A few years ago I had the first pick in my FF league and selected a running back, Mack Strong, because of his extremely impressive name. I also ensure that Tony Romo is on my roster every year. Despite his injury this season, I've continued to start Romo (except on his bye week, of course) and he's led my team, Bob's Fools, to a recent three-game win streak.

Lolol, I can't say I remember Mack Strong. Gogogo Bob's Fools!

Not too pleased with the lineups I've created for the day but hoping for some binkage after yesterday's success.

I'm officially out of the downswing. Since my last post, things on the felt have mostly gone swimmingly. I've had a couple monster sessions in addition to several other solid winning sessions to amount to a very profitable ten day stretch. Variance has been on my side, particularly with respect to strong hands holding up and finding myself in relatively few tough spots. Most importantly, though, I'm playing my strongest NL cash game since the very beginning of the year, before I got swept up in the 5-10 PLO tide. I've been enjoying playing a lot more over this stretch, no doubt in large part because of the better results.

Unfortunately, it's been quite the opposite story in the crushing life saga. While I've done a good job maintaining my habits of meditating every day and working out regularly, I haven't been reading much, I've been letting tasks pile up on my to do list, I've wasted a lot of time thinking anxious thoughts, and I've been struggling with some bouts of depression in my alone time.

This might sound silly, but getting sucked into the DraftKings vortex has been part of the problem. It's been dominating my free time at the expense of other interests. I had come into it wanting simply to scratch the itch of having fantasy basketball sweats with no intention of taking it too seriously (brag: won my h2h traditional league last year; it disbanded this year), but it's been indulging my obsessive nature and I haven't been able to help myself. There's something deeply rooted in my character about refusing to be mediocre at things that interest me, and in DFS finding success requires a lot of time and research. I'm playing for much smaller stakes than poker (averaging ~$50/day over a bunch of h2h and some gpp entries, NBA only), but I'm experiencing decently strong emotional reactions over its swings.

I had been considering withdrawing but then had a couple of really good days on the site, including a very good day today with lineups hitting 325 and 317 that each hit top 1% for the day. I've done a lot of research and have thought a lot about optimal strategy since depositing. Though there are all sorts of cognitive biases to which I might be falling pretty, I feel like I'm decently +EV, am continuing to improve rapidly, and can potentially do very well on the site. It will take a lot of consistent success playing small stakes before I'm ever willing to play for significant $ on the site. Right now, from a sheer $/hour perspective at these stakes, it's far from being worth the hit on my free time and focus. If the cost of pursuing DFS success is throwing the crushing life saga out of whack, then I'm not willing to pay that price. So far, the cons have outweighed the positives, so I'll need to take this issue seriously and make sure either DFS becomes a net life positive or I stop participating. One necessity going forward is I will need to significantly cut down on the sweating (i.e., checking the DK app constantly) during nights I'm playing poker, although admittedly it's a nice thing to rely on for distraction during slow 15 hand/hour PLO games.

In other news, the next few weeks are going to be a little unusual for me, as each of the next three weekends I've got something going on and probably won't be able to play much if any poker. I've decided I'm going to be grinding weekdays pretty hard to compensate. At first, I was a little irritated by the thought of potentially losing three weekends, but then I realized I've increasingly grown to prefer playing on weekdays, anyways. Though not as plentiful, the action tends to be quite good, maybe even better on average (although the ceiling for action isn't anywhere as high) and I prefer the quieter and less serious environment.

Cliffs:
-Running good and have made a lot of $ since downswing-inspired rant. Poker going much better and has been more enjoyable. NL cash game becoming strong again. I'm officially out of what became my worst downswing ever starting around mid-WSOP.
-Crushing life saga got derailed a bit, partly because I got sucked into the DFS vortex with mixed results. Have been enjoying the process of doing research and sweating but it's come at the expense of being productive in other areas and also has compromised my focus at the poker table to some extent. If it doesn't become a net life positive soon, I'm going to have to let it go.

Oh, to answer your question, I'm currently reading "The Antidote". Very good stuff.

By the way, why no NFL on DFS? I've always heard NBA is the toughest to beat.