Quick update: Played 5-10 PLO last night and, defying a recent trend, I won a decently big allin pot. On a KJ8r6 board, my Q1098 got there against a set of jacks for a $5100 pot. Not among the very biggest pots I've played in this game, but I'm happy to start catching up on my allin equity expectation. The session still had its annoying moments, like me flopping top set of aces and the nfd and losing $1k in a pot villain turned the wheel, plus getting only a sidepot (albeit a large one) in a hand I flopped the nut str8 and nut flush draw then picked up another flush draw on the turn, but for the most part I ran pretty well.

Ultimately finished around +$4300 over 5.5 hours (didn't get a seat in the game until around 11). Thought I played great.


So pleased you're enjoying it! I too found myself thinking while reading it that it seemed to intersect very nicely with many other psychology-oriented books I've read.

I've started rereading it, to create a fresh opinion of it.

I think that I will probably get some good stuff out of the book, but the fact that I'm from a chess background actually gives me my first qualms about it...

The thing is, JW (so far) portrays himself as a former chess prodigy, when in reality he only had limited amounts of talent at the game.

He was precocious, and with the right coaching/attitude might have recent decent professional status, but at no point was in the running to be a top 30 player, let alone reach the Godlike status of Fischer in Chess history.

He never reached the Grandmaster title. He never won or performed well in any major tournaments. You can count the world class players he beat in a classical game (lol sample size) on one hand. I'm not sure what the best poker analogy would be, but maybe it's something like Jamie Gold "retiring", and claiming he could have been the next Stu Ungar or something (with the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer being JWs main event win).

That doesn't mean I'm not excited to read the rest of the book. It can still be as good as people say it is. I just really get annoyed at this typical marketing rhetoric, imo borderline intellectual dishonesty.

I won't go on more about this without finishing the book, but I had to add this as a chessplayer. Pretty compelling writing though, I'm sure I'll get a lot from it.

Interesting perspective as I had always assumed Waitzkin was one of the handful of the best players in America during his peak. He definitely gives the impression that he was among the elite of the elite of his peer group in the world throughout almost his entire playing career. Sounds like that's a bit of hyperbole.

One question re: the bolded--is Fischer truly still considered the "God" of chess? I always assumed he had been eclipsed by Kasparov and then by Magnus Carlsen, but maybe I let their ratings influence my judgment too much. I admit I have no idea what the consensus of the chess world is. Just curious.

Well, I just had one of the most tilting winning sessions I've ever had. The session started great. The game was playing short-handed, where I've noticed I'm more comfortable and have a more pronounced edge than in full ring. I played especially aggressively postflop and chipped up to +$2k after a couple hours, feeling very much in the zone. Eventually, the game became full, I lost a few hundred of profit, and the following hand occurred:

Five players, including me, stick in $60 in a button straddled pot to see the flop. I have KJ109hhhx in MP. Flop comes Qh8c2h. Checked to me, I bet $225. Crazy/horrible player next to act snapraises the pot, and has about $1700 total. The player next to act, a decent player who's a bit on tilt, immediately goes all-in for his stack of $1200. Suddenly, the SB, the only player in the hand who covers my stack and the tough reg I've mentioned other times itt, tanks and then announces a pot-sized raise, committing both of our stacks. Another brutal spot for me in a hand involving this guy. I need 30-31% equity for a call to be profitable ($2700ish to win $8800ish). Here were my thoughts as I contemplated whether to call for my remaining $2700: 1) At least one other player likely has an inside wrap and I feel like I could easily be drawing to a chop on that front. 2) I'm in trouble against the NFD, which seems like a very likely holding between the three allins, and I also happen to have three hearts, limiting my outs. 3) I've seen the tough reg check-shove in a somewhat similar multiway situation in a big pot before with a wrap and the NFD, the exact kind of hand I don't want to be up against, 4) the speed at which the two allins stuck in their chips made me think their ranges were particularly strong and made me think the NFD was likely involved. I ultimately folded.

Turn 6x. River 9x. I would have made the nuts. Tough reg turns over AhXx8x8x for a set of 8s and the bare ace w/ no flush draw. The other two players immediately muck. Seeing his hand, I realize I would have had easily the highest equity of anyone in the pot. Had I made a call nearly anyone else at the table would have made, I would have finally won a huge allin pot, this time for almost $9k.

I'm almost never bothered by folding winners, but I admit this hand hit me hard emotionally. I immediately started second-guessing the fold and ran the HH by a friend whose PLO opinion I respect more than anyone's, who basically said in a normal game with all competent players he'd be reluctant to get it in but in this kind of game it seems like the kind of spot you have to just go with it. The more I think about it, the more I think that I should have just shrugged and gotten in it. Even though I've seen the tough reg in the SB check-raise in a similar spot with a huge draw, in that other hand none of the players were all-in, whereas here two players were; logically he's much less likely to raise a drawing hand in this scenario as there's less reason to want to push me out. If he has a set, which seems likely for this reason, I have equity such I think I have to go with my hand.

After that hand, I got dealt a lot of starting hands that hit the flop just hard enough for me to miss draws/make good second best hands and bleed chips, and I also tried a bare ace bluff that didn't work, whittling my profit all the way down to +$427 before the game broke after 7 hours of play. Very frustrating second half of the session. The KJ109hhh hand is still bothering me. I can't help but wonder if a lack of comfort with the size of the game made me more reluctant than I should have been to call, in which case that's a mental leak that I must confront.

Man omaha is such a brutal game, facing three all ins I'd be thinking I'm up against the nfd for sure and muck pretty quickly, guess Im way off? What do you think of the tough regs play with middle set there?

Well, there is no one God in chess of course, but the answer is yes, definitely. Fischer has cemented a place in the history of the game. If you ask any chess aficionado his top 5 list of Chess greats, Fischer will in there 95 percent of the time, for a reason.

Of course, it was a more romantic, computerless time where a player like him would have to learn russian to have access to the best chess material. But Fischer is widely considered the first true chess professional, completely obsessed with being the best. His story, almost singlehandedly rising to the top of a very Soviet-dominated chess world, in the middle of the Cold War, is astounding.

Technically, chess has evolved a lot and Fischer at his peak (around 1970) would probably get soundly beaten by Kasparov at his peak (around 1998) who in turn would probably suffer facing Carlsen at his peak (2015 . Just as I, at my very modest club player peak, would probably soundly beat the early geniuses (Philidor, Morphy...)

To make a sports analogy (sorry, I'm french, don't know anything about US sports), if you know a bit about football (your soccer), Fischer would be a Maradona, and Carlsen a Messi; obviously both massive geniuses that are a part of football history, but if you stuck Maradona in a 2015 Barcelona team he would look talented but way out of shape.

But that is down mostly to the advancement of chess theory and preparation, not pure talent. He was clearly one of the greatest talents of all time, and produced many masterpieces on the board. If you have time, definitely check out the documentary "Bobby Fischer against the world", even without knowing much about chess it's fascinating - he's a very complex and rich character.

probably also depends on where you live

is fischer considered the god of chess right now in europe or russia? i dont know the answer, but i am curious what you think, palinca. i would guess that despite being very respected in other parts of the world, he probably isn't seen in that god-like way that an american chess player may view him in.

i think your analogies are spot on but theres also something to be said for the fact that if fischer had been born in the same year as kasparov or carlsen and had access to the same tools and information, there is a chance he'd be stronger than both - although there is also the chance he'd be weaker. there isnt any way to know as far as i can tell.

These are strong claims, but I have to consider them, since I've no great knowledge of the chess world. While Waitzkin is technically writing a memoir, I'm, as a relatively naive reader, assuming that he was an elite player. But what is "elite" anyway in sports? For me, someone who is a Top 500 player in professional golf or tennis is elite, even though number 498 is effectively a public nobody. I would feel more confident if you compared Waitzkin's chess ranking to a field like golf or tennis where the ranking system is meaningful (and has to be as such because a player's ranking has an impact on what tournaments they can play and the "seed" they are given). We have to remember that ultimately this book isn't about chess; it's more about the psychology of peak performance. So, are you sure you want to maintain the "borderline intellectual dishonesty" claim? Of course, this claim implies that I'm being misled as a reader and I suspect that I'm not.

[QUOTE=Duke0424;46146291i think your analogies are spot on but theres also something to be said for the fact that if fischer had been born in the same year as kasparov or carlsen and had access to the same tools and information, there is a chance he'd be stronger than both - although there is also the chance he'd be weaker. there isnt any way to know as far as i can tell.[/QUOTE]

I absolutely agree.

Well, as I said not necessarily THE God of the chess, but absolutely in the top 5 greats of all the time.
Chess is an individual sport, that's spread all over the world, with standardized rules for the past 100-150 years pretty much, and is 95 percent skill. So it's obviously much easier to decide who the top players are as opposed to football or w/e. There is a pretty accurate rating system, and as far as comparing players from different eras, well that's also possible to some extent because all the games are recorded, so one can form an objective view of a players strength even if the guy has been dead for 50 years.
Anyone who knows anything about chess would agree Fischer is top 5 material. He retired as world number 1 in the rankings and winner of the ABSOLUTE world championship, not a regional championship or university championship or under-20 championship or a national championship (and chess isn't boxing - there aren't 10 different federations and weight classes and champions don't get to avoid each other for years....). As far as I know, there had never been, in the history of the game, a bigger rating gap between the number 1 and number 2 rating spots of the ranking.
The guy was a mental beast as well; kind of like Kasparov in the sense that he had such an aura that even great players would crumble psychologically when facing him : Fischer quotes
Ironically, his intense drive and hunger for victory, his passion for chess, probably derived from a unstable mental condition that later led him to very low points (extreme paranoia, reclusion, prison, etc.)

Ultimately, the book isn't about chess, and JW doesn't need to be a chess genius to make this book valuable. I don't want to attack him too strongly, because I've listened to his chess teaching material in the past and he feels like a very likeable, generous person. He is a very very strong chess player, in the sense that most people will never get close to his level. His peak rating would currently place him 1350th or so in the world. Not bad at all considering the millions of chess aficionados worldwide. Elite? I guess, why not, considering your definition. World class at any point in his career or age group? definitely not.
I'll reserve my judgement till the end of my reading. I guess marketing is the name of the game, I just dislike that part of the rhetoric so far and find it misleading.

Just had a 5-10 PLO session where I ran better than I have in any session during this particular local PLO era. While I ran well in a variety of ways, most importantly I was dealt multiple flopped big hands that either held to the river or took down the pot without showdown in bloated pots. The end result? My biggest winning session ever, just shy of +$7k.

The biggest pot involved was especially sweet, as I finally won a huge allin pot (~$8500), getting it in with top set (AKKJss) on a K104r board against a stubborn player's middle set (A10107ss) when we were both deep-stacked and the pot had been somewhat bloated pre, with a third player sticking in $500 otf and then folding to my check-raise and the other player's reraise allin. While I was a huge favorite, I have to admit I was sweating a bit as I've historically ran pretty terribly in the biggest allin pots I've played in these games (see previous posts). After we ran it twice and the board came clean twice, I was thrilled to ship my biggest winning pot ever to this point in my career.

My 2015 results are now pretty great: +$24k over ~230 hours of play for an hourly in excess of $100. I can sense my "I'm running bad during this era of 5-10 PLO" mental narrative disappearing, which is very welcome. Sounds like no game will be getting off tomorrow, which is great since I could use a day off. I may finally make a trip an hour away for a "float" in a sensory deprivation tank I've been meaning to do for months. I also hope to take at least an hour or so and think through some postflop spots that arose over the last few days where I suspect I didn't take an optimal line. I've gotten increasingly worried that the size of the game has made me too passive in some spots and I'm particularly eager to analyze some hands with that in mind.


I've spent even more time thinking about this hand and feel more unsure now than I did last night as to what's optimal. Your opinion makes me feel better about my fold. Re: the tough reg's line, I think it's a good one. I like his check first to act because, on a board with that level of wetness that multiway, he can expect at least one player, most likely multiple players, to commit chips to the pot allowing him to c/r to effectively commit their stacks to see another card when he very likely has the best equity in the hand. Once he checks and that many people show strength, in a theoretical vacuum assuming a random sampling of competent opponents, he should either shove or fold. Under the table dynamics at the time and against these particular villains, he has no real option but to get it in with middle set and cross his fingers no one has a set of queens.



RE: CHESS, I've found the tangential discussion that's developed in this thread pretty interesting and may even check out the Bobby Fischer doc tonight. Just curious, palinca, how does Jeff Sarwer's legacy compare to Waitzkin's? That's of particular interest to me given Jeff's success in poker; you'll find that Jeff is discussed quite a bit in the book as one of Josh's primary rivals.

Looking forward to reading about your sensory deprivation tank experience, it has also been on my todo list forever!

Re : chess

Unfortunately, Jeff Sarwer has much less of a chess legacy than JW, who had a much longer career and produced some interesting teaching material (on the Chessmaster PC series, and some books as well).
Jeff retired extremely early (was is age 11/12?) from the chess world. It is impossible to know what he would have become in another context. There are chances though that he was actually a bigger talent than JW - he won a youth WC competition (albeit in a very low category, under 10 iirc) at some point, but more impressively, after decades out of competitive chess, he popped up a few years ago and put in a very impressive performance in a fairly strong rapid tournament (beating some IM/GM along the way I think).
I was actually thinking about Jeff Sarwer a few days ago, has he been playing poker recently? I remember some promising early results and Shaun Deeb saying he was basically a poker genius, but he's been off the radar for a while. Listening to a few interviews, a captivating fellow.

I agree with palinca re Waitzkin. His story made for a feel good book/movie, but he was never among the chess elite. Not even comparable to Fischer. Catchy title though.

Fischer is definitely Top 5 ever. I'd say he's consensus Top 3 ever, with Kasparov and Carlson the other two. I think globally, that would have to be the rankings too. Who else would even come close? Kramnik? Karpov? Botvinnik? Capablanca? Alekhine? Of all the pre-1975 (just using Karpov's first reign as WC as arbitrary cut off) players that were world champions, I imagine only Fischer would have been able to maintain Top 5-10 player status in modern day chess.

As for OP's PLO sessions and tilt, amazing job man. I feel the emotions myself just reading your HH. Great job grinding out wins when most of us would just suffer the losses and complain in BBV all the time about how Mike Matusow we all here.

Keep it up OP!

And very interesting/fun discussion re chess everyone!

FYI, I found this excerpt on Fischer's wikipedia page pretty interesting (some context: he had established himself by this point as the best player in the world but had turned into a recluse and had barely played any matches after the Spassky match in 1972):



I woke up too late on Wednesday to be able to make an appointment by the end of the day. Bummer. I'm hoping to check it out by the end of the month.

Thanks very much! Friday's session fit this mold very much (see below).

Poker Update

Thursday

After taking the day off Wednesday (no 5-10 PLO ever ran, anyways), I had a swingy session on Thursday. Not having a seat yet in 5-10 PLO, I won a quick $200 in 1-2 PLO over a little less than an hour of play. Once I got moved to the 5-10 game, I found it was particularly juicy. I was stuck a few hundred when the following hand occurred:

I'm the preflop aggressor in the CO with AKQJss, 5 players see the flop for $50 each. Flop 1064r. Checked around. Turn Qh (adding two hearts to the board, not my suit). Checked to BTN, a player new to PLO who bets $225 into the $250 pot. Folded to me, I call with the turned pair of queens and decent nut wrap.

River 3x. I check. BTN immediately bets $650. Having watched this player closely over the course of the session, I had seen him miss several good thin value opportunities on the river and therefore thought his river betting range was particularly polarized to the nuts or bluffs. The river immediately seemed like a bluff for the following reasons: 1) He's never checking behind the flop with a set, limiting the # of strong hands he could have to hands improved by the turn Qh. 2) He's unlikely to have turned top set given a) I have a queen, and b) I really don't think he would have been comfortable betting so much with top set here when it's no longer the nuts, even if it's unlikely I have 56xx, based on observations from previous PLO hands and general nl/plo experience with this player, 3) he's never value betting two pair here given this sizing based on the same observed tendencies, 4) I've noticed in both nl and plo when he does have a monster on the river he tends to miss a lot of value by betting too small, 5) unless he has 56xx I don't think he's betting any non-str8 value hand so quickly, 6) a bunch of draws missed (hearts, multiple straight draws).

I toss in a calling chip pretty quickly. The player starts shaking his head, turns over AKJ10 (same wrap, worse pair), and I ship the ~$2k pot with my pair of queens. A couple players at the table immediately exclaimed that it was a great call, which made me feel good.

After that hand, however, everything went to hell pretty quickly. Several annoying hands occurred, of which these are only a few: a) AKJJss flops middle set on a AJ3dds board then 7s turn gives me the spade nfd, river is worst card in deck Qd and I have to c/f river to player described above (who bet 1/3 pot, illustrating my suspicion described above about his bet sizing w/ monsters), b) top set (nuts on flop) goes down in flames in another hand with a bad board runout, c) in a pot I bloat pre with AA78ss I flop the nuts on a 654r board and end up losing to a turned full house by someone who has a junk 64xx hand, d) 4 handed I get my last chips in with KJ97 on a 993 flop against 9654 and lose.

Just one of those nights where almost nothing went my way postflop and in the end there was nothing I could do but shrug and hope for better luck next time. Despite the game being amazing, since it was 5:30 in the morning by the time my bustout hand occurred I decided I'd rather leave than risk forcing action on another buyin. Ultimately I lost $3500 for the day, but I left with a smile, content that I played well and just suffered some horrible luck postflop.

Friday

Friday I again had to play in another game for awhile before I had a seat in 5-10 PLO, this time 2-5 NL. Ran ice cold and lost $400 in the 2-5 game, but got some entertainment from the following hand:

Very fishy, nice rec player open limps CO. I raise to $25 on the BTN with K9cc expecting to win the pot pre or on the flop without much resistance. BB, bad player, calls, CO calls. Flop J108cc. Gin. Checked to me, I bet $45. BB calls, CO calls. Uh, ok. Turn As. Checked to me, I bet $135. BB snap folds, CO surprises me by snap calling. River 10h. CO immediately announces (with $400 behind) "Go ahead and bet. Whatever you bet, any amount, I'm calling. Go ahead and bet; do it!" I tank for half a minute then finally decide to give up and check. CO turns over.....AQcc, a hand that had me in horrendous shape that a) limped CO, b) check-called two streets on an amazing board. Poker isn't dead. Despite losing the hand, I actually found it all pretty funny, and on a sidenote ended up joking around with CO the next half an hour, pretty funny dude who was just having fun.

After an hour and a half playing 2-5 my seat opens for the 5-10 PLO game. I sit down with $1900. A couple of hands later, I have $0, having gotten it in with a mandatory AAxx aipf spot and losing 3 ways (this has happened to me many times in these games). I buy in for another $1500. Several hands later, I have $0 again. This time, however, sub-optimal play on my part was to blame. I went a little crazy preflop (I don't think I was tilting) and attempted a squeeze in a spot where I thought I had a decent chance of trapping $500 of dead $ in the pot with 7653ss where a ton of people had called a raise to $100 and thought I had a decent overlay against what I thought was a clear AAxx hand where I would know on the flop whether to continue for my remaining half stack if the player didn't shove (in which case I had decent equity against his AAxx hand headsup). What ended up happening instead was every player but one called my reraise, creating a bloated pot. Somehow, I managed to flop a top 5% flop, though, 1042hh (hearts being my suit), got it in for my remaining $750, to which two of the big stacks reraised. Turn 10x. I end up losing to my usual nemesis's K744 (yes, some people in this game are actually sticking in $700 pre with such hands). I'm not going to defend my play in this hand because it was bad; with such a decent speculative multiway hand I'm in a great spot to just peel a flop instead of attempting a convoluted high variance squeeze based on some questionable assumptions. Had I just peeled a flop, I probably would have check-stuffed and lost my stack anyways, but that's no consolation.

Having lost so much so quickly in a couple irritating hours of both nl and plo, and after having had a brutal several hour stretch to close the previous night's session (described above), I decided to minimize risk and rebought for a tiny stack of $600.

Keeping my cool and not tilting, just trying to focus on playing my stack right and disregarding what I was stuck, I played well, ran great over the next few hours hitting some big hands (including my biggest flop ever during this 5-10 PLO era, KcJx10c10x on a Qc10x9c flop, which ended up scooping allin on the flop against a KJxx hand), and ultimately ran the little $600 all the way up to $6400 before cashing out $6250, ultimately profiting ~$2300 in the 5-10 PLO game and winning between $1800 and $1900 for the day. Another great comeback.

Life Update

I realized last night that I've already played over 125 hours since returning home from LA the evening of February 3, pretty insane. I've been sleeping like a fiend all week, averaging probably 9.5 hours of sleep/night; I think the sleep deprivation from the LA trip plus the crazy grind since returning home has generated a great need for rest.

Despite all the sleep and poker this week, however, I still managed to make decent progress in other areas, nearly finishing my tax preparation and setting up a date for tomorrow with a girl I think is a great prospect plus keeping up ongoing convos with a couple other women who are probably waiting for me to ask them out. I also checked out the Bobby Fischer doc recommended in this thread (pretty decent) and watched Silver Linings Playbook, which I wasn't too impressed by although it was decent. I've also been working out every three days or so, not as much as I would like but still respectable; I set a new personal time/distance record on the treadmill the other day that I'm proud of.

I'm looking to start a new book and also looking to get back on track with my mindfulness training.

I'm a sucker for "squeezing" like this on 1/2/5 PLO where the player pool is generally loose-passive preflop. If you can narrow the pot to less than 3 players, there's definitely merit to the 3bet, since, as you know, your equity is always likely to be 30% or better, and, of course, you have the advantage of playing your perceived as well as your actual range, on certain board textures. I'm sure you know this theory, but, on this occasion was your mistake more that you misjudged the table dynamic and over-estimated your ability to reduce the number of players by 3betting? I think it's important not to over-compensate after losing these pots, for, otherwise, you may drift into some unbalanced play, in the near future.

Solid analysis as usual; that was indeed the kind of dynamic I was trying to exploit. One of my mistakes was overestimating the likelihood of multiple players folding (regardless of whether the original 3better reraised). Another mistake was overestimating the likelihood of the original 3better reraising. Worst of all, though, was underestimating the profitability of the lower variance option of peeling a flop "for cheap" with a hand that plays very well multiway, where I am either going to hit the flop hard and be able to c/r in a decent SPR situation or c/f.


QUICK UPDATE: Played a short session tonight and was fortunate to run great. After losing $200 in 10 minutes of 2-5 nl (in a hand where the turn, a third heart, gave me and two other players flushes, strangely enough) I made a very stress-free $2800 in 3.5 hours of 5-10 PLO. Even though the game was amazing, I decided to leave early since I have to wake up early (by my standards) tomorrow for the date, plus I want some time to mentally prepare for my return to the dating grind.

Dang man, you are starting to crush it in the plo games. Congrats. It was only a matter of time

Well, the date ended up being a bust. This was the first time I had ever gone out with a girl who sent me the first message. After exchanging a few messages on match every few days while I was in LA, we started texting each other and developed a pretty strong rapport over the last couple of weeks. She's a 26 yo Asian girl with a good job and a lot of similar TV/film interests. I was pretty excited heading into today.

Unfortunately, I think I did a poor job presenting myself. I had already made the decision that going forward in dating I am going to be completely honest about my current life situation as a professional poker player who also happens to be a lawyer who's not practicing law at the moment. She knew I played poker for substantial income, but didn't know that it was all I'm currently doing until today, pretty much because she had never really asked. As she didn't know anything about poker, I had a pretty difficult time explaining what I do for a living such she could get a good sense of its stability and profitability. Sadly, I'm pretty sure she got the impression that I was a lazy bum lacking direction in life, when in reality I grind as hard at the tables as anyone I know and I am an extremely driven person.

When we weren't talking about poker, the conversation flowed pretty well, and even though she was among the least attractive girls physically I've ever gone on a date with, her personality, interests, intelligence, and maturity were such I would have been thrilled to go on a second date to continue to evaluate our compatibility.

Unfortunately, she already decided it wasn't meant to be, responding to my follow-up text a few hours after the date with a statement that she had decided she wasn't interested and didn't want to lead me on. She also mentioned I was "very nice." Standard. I can't say I wasn't surprised. I think that in an alternative universe where I had come more prepared to talk about my current life situation and had packaged myself better, she would have been happy to meet for a second date.

Oh well, I'll just have to look at it as good experience for the next one. I'm still messaging two other women that seem promising, so I'll come more prepared the next time. I'll also be less nervous with some of the rust now off, as 1) I got very anxious an hour before the date (though I felt totally normal a few minutes into the date), and 2) now that I have experienced the "worst case scenario" with this one it hardly feels like a big deal, in contrast to me taking the same situation really hard a few months ago with a girl I really liked who I had gone on two dates with. I've learned to temper my expectations and stop investing myself so emotionally into early, idealistic hopes of what could happen.

Thanks, plzd; hoping the improved rungood continues!

great read so far about PLO. keep it up and run well!

Seems you already identified your mistakes on your date but just in case, you should not be coming on with heavy subjects and trying to explain what you do. Would you try to tell her how trading works if you were a trader, either employed with a bank or trading for yourself? if you were trading for a bank, you probably would where you would keep the answer to "so what do you do" pretty short if trading for yourself.

on first dates, keep it light&funny, allow her to fall for you. heavy subjects/being totally open about everything is getting in the way of this. It also adds a bit to you being "mysterious" which gals love. There is time for heavy subjects later, right around the time if YOU want to commit to a serious relationship. You are not interviewing to be her boyfriend, she is the one who has to be so awesome that you want to see her again.

Also, what's with the follow-up texts? That's anti-challenge. Call her 3 days later to suggest a date during a weekday (because you're a busy guy doing lots of stuff on the weekend). She has 20 other guys she is texting with already, don't be one of them.

Ignoring her for three days after a date sounds like a pretty good way to ensure that her next date will be with one of the guys who actually shows interest in her.

Subbed, looking forward to finishing this thread later tonight .

GL!

Dating has historically been a major headache for me because a lot of my natural tendencies seem to be pitfalls for me in developing success. I accept the fact that I'll have to make some changes in order to enhance my chances of success, but I feel like it's been quite the struggle to accommodate the balance I seek to maintain between authenticity, which is very important to me, and enhancing my attractiveness.

My own experience and research lead me to believe that most of what you've written is probably right. One thing I've come to realize is that I've been projecting an air of "too much attainability," mostly taking the form of me responding to texts instantly and messages too quickly, trying to set up the next date too quickly, being too agreeable when on a date, presenting my current situation too defensively (i.e., acting as if I'm operating against an unstated assumption that there's something wrong with playing poker full-time after having quit my job as an attorney), etc..

The reasons for this behavior are mixed; by nature I'm an agreeable person who's quick to respond to communications directed towards me, but I think in the dating context I also have an underlying inadequacy complex that's leading me to value my own time and desires less than the prospect's time and desires. In other words, I'm focused on proving my value to the prospect, rather than on assessing the prospect's value to me (which Mark McKay touched on above). In my experience, girls pick up on this quickly and find it a huge turn-off. I believe they like to be challenged and I'm not challenging them. They simply don't want someone who's characterized by an eagerness to please.

Truthfully, I've been depressed the last couple of days. I've struggled for a long time with confidence and self-worth issues, and every new rejection hits me in a vulnerable place, threatening to confirm my darkest mental narratives. Over the last few years I've made some progress towards maintaining a healthier, more confident mindset, but I still have a lot more progress to make. That's part of what I'm hoping this thread will ultimately help me accomplish.

Thank you!


QUICK POKER UPDATE: Played about 8 hours of 5-10 PLO last night, finished ~+$1200. I have a lot more I could write, but I'm running short on time. Cliffs: -was card dead most of the session, -lost $2200 in a hand I got trapped calling off my stack on the turn with the nfd and an overpair where I probably played the turn poorly, -played the biggest pot I won during the session really well and got max value based on a good understanding of the relevant villain's tendencies, -felt more like "scared $" than I have in weeks and I'm not sure why exactly, maybe because I've been in a bit of a negative state of mind since the bad date.

Funnily enough, after non hearing about Jeff Sawrer for so long, I stumbled upon two pieces about him yesterday, on both a poker website and a chess website :

http://www.pokernews.com/news/2015/0...view-20730.htm

http://en.chessbase.com/post/former-...turns-to-chess

I read your initial date related posts and couldn't quite formulate what I though was off in your approach, but part of it was very close to what you've just exposed here. I congratulate you for your self-awareness.
Have you seen the movie Boyhood? The little speech the Dad makes his teenage son after he gets dumped by his high school girlfriend?
I'm not very familiar with online dating. The concept has always felt a little unnatural to me (maybe because I'm French and culturally we are much more relaxed/informal about the whole dating things). I'm not saying it doesn't have it's positives, just that it might not be for everyone. Have you thought about other approaches?

POKER UPDATE: The 5-10 PLO game only went for 3.5 hours today, but it ended up being a great session, as I finished close to +$3,500. After having seemingly lost a million times aipf with AAxx over the last few weeks, I was fortunate to win a 3 way aipf tonight with an AAxx hand! That hand accounted for most of my profit, with not much else of interest happening.

palinca, that's funny re: Jeff Sarwer, especially since I googled him shortly after asking about him itt and couldn't find anything recent.

I saw Boyhood a couple of weeks ago and really liked it. I recall being moved by the Dad's little speech, but I can't remember the gist of it too well. Online dating still feels awkward to me and it can be very frustrating, but real life dating has never been easy for me, either. Right now, online dating is the best option I have. My workplace (the casino) doesn't give rise to too many opportunities to meet women, or at least the kind of women I'm interested in romantically, and I generally don't believe in "****ting where you eat" anyways. I've considered volunteering at the dog shelter or elsewhere as a way to meet more women, or joining a yoga class or something, but I've been too fixated on poker to take the time to do either.

I can't speak to online dating's popularity outside of the US, but here it's become the easiest way to meet potential mates. It used to have a stigma such that people didn't want to admit they met their girlfriend/boyfriend online, but it's seemingly outgrown that stigma dramatically over the last few years. My closest friend at the firm met his wife on match.com.

I've had great opportunities with some amazing women come up over the years, but they all either went nowhere or didn't end well, and it was my fault every time. Like I've said previously itt, I've experienced a lot of personal growth over the last few years, and I believe had it been sooner I could have avoided some painful moments and enjoyed some great times. I try not to indulge regrets, but it would be fair to say that a lot of my biggest regrets in life involve mistakes I made with women over the last decade.

Anyways, that's all in the past. The key for me now is to accept the fact that I made mistakes and to avoid making those same mistakes. The past is the past and there's nothing I can do to change it. One of the things I've learned from Buddhist literature is that, almost universally, thoughts about the past are toxic. Negative thoughts about the past, are, by nature, unpleasant, and further they distract one from experiencing the present moment. Positive thoughts about the past on the other hand can lead to attachment, a form of suffering, and also can distract one from experiencing the present moment. The present moment, the NOW, is all there is and ever will be for all of us (i.e., we are always living right now) (on a sidenote, Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now was helpful in revealing this to me as was Sam Harris' Waking Up). The mind can find a peaceful refuge in embracing the present moment wholeheartedly instead of getting lost in thought. I'm learning this more and more as my meditation practice grows.