yeah you probably dont play mtts and don`t know how annoying it is to finish 8th

I agree and got to look on bright side, 8th was still a decent score and if it had been a different tourny where 8th was 1st prize you would have been over the moon. Thats imo the way to luck at it, glass half full.
GG

that's smth I've been thinking about a lot lately. Sure, it's frustrating to get 8th in such a big mtt but we all know you can't change the circumstances. I'm not always good with tilt control after sessions (emo-mode etc.), but as long as it doesn't affect you ingame it's just something one need to work on to feel better all around as a person.

keep your head up ginger, you obv ran good to get all these scores in miniftops (and you know it) while playing your best atm. It's all we can do as mtt players, while it's frustrating to get 8th I'm sure you won some hands as a non-favorite to get there.

cliffs: mental game is a bitch but really important for this silly game we play.

Are you playing all the Scoops that fit in your buy in level, or do you skip stuff like the badugi and draw Scoops?

Anyway, gl

gg ginger. final tabling a 5k+ runner event is a win in anyone's book.

This + your recent FTP run obviously suggests you're doing all the right things lately. Keep it up.

Nice run Ginger

Hey guys, thanks a lot for the rail last night, really appreciate it. Sorry I got a little snappy in the aftermath.

There's a weird kind of sickness in being an MTT player - I was thinking when I woke up this morning (after 4 hours of sleep...as of right now I've been playing poker for about 36 out of the last 44 hours, and soon enough it'll probably be up to like 50 out of 72) about how I don't think poker could really make me feel any worse than I did right in that moment, and yet here I am. I'm still alive, I didn't explode with rage or burst out crying. I just kept thinking about my next session and the next time I could have a shot at making a deep run like that.

It was probably the biggest hit I've taken in poker, but I've taken bigger hits outside the game and come back stronger. At the end of the day, I lost a ****ing poker tournament, big deal. Plenty more left to win over the next couple of weeks.

GL to all playing today, let's go!

sick scores, sick runs, but most of all - sick attitude.
teach me plz.

Just watch raw, and you will remember that some things are worse than what we all have going on. Lol

I've only been on FTs with 2k ut and I'm assuming that my own emotions in those situations are relative to yours, but I'm aware that I could be an exception rather than common, and obviously all people are different, so if what I'm about to say doesn't translate then please excuse me in advance.
To me the positive to take out of this is that, ye it sucks to get so close but at the same time for someone like you who is always willing to get back on the pony, then in the future the experience of being in such a (seemingly to me) tough field with a hell of a lot of $ ut will serve you well when you inevitably find yourself in this position again.
You'll be less pumped next time and hopefully your head will be clearer, and of course you will be a stronger player not only because you will have worked on your game in that time, but also because of that past experience hopefully making you a little less hyped.
This disappointment should not be viewed as a failure, it should totally be viewed as a path to greater success.

This is exactly right. If I thought last night would be the only shot I'd ever get at a 90k score, I'd be gutted. Fact is, though, it's not even the only shot I've had in the last few weeks, after my 11th in that miniFTOPS 2-day event. It'll come soon, and I can wait. I'm not going anywhere.

On another note, shout out to my stablemate PLO UFO who shipped the 27 turbo KO last night for 5k and chopped the Big 55 for 14k. Dude's been pretty damn due lately.

Great run ginger! Hope you run hotter than the run at your next big ft! I'm sure it won't be far away...
what you get for 8th?
Keep on keepin on

$7k i think it was?

Great run. GG mate.

Thanks for all the recent support guys. Really appreciate it. Got a lot of stuff on my mind though, so what follows is just gonna be a sort of stream-of-consciousness rant to help me get some of it out there.

'The Zone', both inside and outside of poker (tl;dr)

Lately I've been reading The Mental Game of Poker 2 (or rather, I've been sitting there and looking at the pages - not sure how much is going in) and thinking a lot about the idea of what it means to play your best, and how often I really do it. I've been having a lot of issues lately when it comes to playing my best, for a few reasons.

One of the main things that's been affecting me is simply playing too many tables. This might not be a very easy issue for others to understand or for me to explain, but I'll go ahead and try anyway. I think the gist of it is that most of my poker education came with me playing >16 tables, and feeling constantly taxed by all the decisions I was making. I always felt 'dialled in' when playing more tables, and even though I was entirely aware that I was misclicking, snapfolding in bad spots, and even doing extremely dumb stuff like not noticing I was OOP in a hand and accidentally donkbetting in a spot I would never normally do it, I was convincing myself that I was playing my best, simply as a result of the fact that a) I knew I was getting the most volume possible, and b) I was pretty much unable to focus on anything else while playing, so I knew I was concentrating pretty hard.

This year, however, I've been getting infinitely better results since dropping down the number of tables I play. I've been focused, I've been more relaxed, and generally playing better. It's a complete and total no-brainer that playing 8-12 tables is better for me than playing >12. Yet, despite this, I've had several instances where I've had 12 tables up and a good value MTT is starting, and because at that particular moment I feel like I'm not overly taxed by 12 tables, I load it up. This occasionally doubles up on itself, to the point where I get to 8pm and there's about four good value tourneys starting, and I convince myself I can fit them all in, and then suddenly I'm playing 14, 16 or even more tables, and convincing myself it's fine because soon enough I'll bust a few others and be back down to 12.

Now, I'm aware that this is a really weird problem, and is probably connected to some other issues. I'm pretty sure at this point that it's linked to my results, and when I haven't had a big result for a while I get antsy and start desperately trying to sneak in more volume. I also think it's linked to what I mentioned earlier about not feeling like I'm fully focused, or even not feeling like I'm working hard, if I'm not playing a taxing number of tables. I fear missing good value tournaments or even late registering them, because I might be missing out on a tournament that I could win. This is really dumb, because each time I add another table I'm reducing my chances of winning the tournaments I'm already in, and it's especially dumb because it's an approach that is entirely motivated by recent results. There's no reason at all why I should be playing more tables in a downswing than in an upswing - in fact, it's completely the opposite of what I should be doing. The fact that it's SCOOP makes it even more of a testing time to stick to the right number of tables, but again, if there's ever a time when I want to be playing my absolute best, it's during a major series.

This idea of being 'in the zone' - of playing one's best - is a very ethereal concept, but it's something that I can definitely put my finger on when it's happening. When I'm in the zone, I'm not tilting or results-oriented, and I'm taking my time over every decision. The problem, however, is that I have some sort of connection in my head between the idea of being 'in the zone', and the idea of playing a lot of tables, and when I am playing 'in the zone', I immediately feel like it's a good time to add more tables, which is the one thing which would take me out of the zone immediately. As soon as I get to the place I want to be, I stop doing the things that got me there.

This is a problem that manifests itself in life, as well - when I'm 'in the zone' in life, I'm eating well, sleeping well, working out all the time, and keeping myself tidy and organised. When I'm not 'in the zone' in life, I'm eating badly and getting takeaways all the time during poker sessions, my apartment is a mess, I'm not shaving, I'm not taking time to meditate or write, and I'm getting lazy about working out too. What I'm trying to discern at the moment is, where is the link between my being 'in the zone' poker-wise, and 'in the zone' life-wise? What is it that causes me to be so self-destructive?

When I'm behaving healthily in life - particularly when I'm losing weight - my first instinct is to drop whatever positive behaviours I've picked up as soon as they aren't 'necessary' any more, or as soon as I have an excuse for not following through. I lose a few pounds, and I feel like I can afford to take a day off from working out, or order a pizza instead of making a salad. I make a deep run and stay up really late for it, lose a few hours' sleep, and all of a sudden I'm telling myself I'm too tired to even work out for half an hour at home. Then, a little while later, I get pissed off with myself for slacking off, and re-dedicate myself to the process, only to repeat the whole thing all over again, which is what I'm doing right now - writing this big long post to berate myself for playing too many tables the last few days, not playing my best, ordering takeout food three nights in a row, barely sleeping, not going to the gym, and just generally being a terrible human.

I want to know what it is that creates this weird cyclicality in my life. I want to know why I get caught up in this endless process of self-improvement and self-destruction. If I added up all the times I've knowingly made decisions that decrease the quality of my life, just because I'm the only person who's accountable for them, I wonder how much better off I could be without those decisions. Similarly, I wonder how much better off I'd be without all the times I've knowingly made decisions that negatively impact my ROI at the tables.

I've tried goal-setting and self-tracking, and that's another thing that tends to get lost after a few days. I'll write a schedule for the week or a bunch of weekly goals on the whiteboard in my apartment, and then two days later I find a reason to ignore it. I'll record all the calories I eat for two days on MyFitnessPal or FitDay, and then after that I won't bother. I'll do a full, two-hour workout one day at the gym, and then the next day I feel like I can afford to go home after half an hour because I did enough yesterday. It's like my whole life revolves around doing things with minimal effort. I have so little self-discipline - and yet, I am 100% certain of how much better my life is when I do make the effort to do all the things that I tell myself I don't have to. It's like on some level, there's a part of me that wants to just sit around all day, do nothing, eat terrible food and mindlessly autopilot my poker sessions, while the other part of me wants to eat well, sleep well, work out, meditate, and play great poker. I want this post to be the beginning of the time when I start consciously deciding to be the latter person, and get rid of the former. I don't expect the change to happen overnight, but I do hope that consciously acknowledging these behaviours might help me to get rid of them.

I have some Tony Robbins tapes I want to listen to again. Haven't listened to them for a while, but I know they cover some pretty interesting stuff. I feel like the time is right to revisit them, as I'm definitely coming into a new phase of my life at the moment. I'm moving to a new apartment in a month or so, changing my legal name to use my mother's last name (as soon as I'm sure I won't need my passport for a while), and for the first time probably ever, I have a really clear perspective on where I'm going career-wise. The missing ingredient is being able to follow through on all the things I know would make me better off. If I put half as much effort into that as I do at getting better at poker, I'd probably be a lot closer to achieving it.

I might end today by reading some more TMGP2 and maybe meditating a little before bed. Looking forward to tomorrow's SCOOPs (the shootout will be great) so here's hoping I can put it all together tomorrow, stick to 8 tables or so, and crush the heck out of it.

GL all and thanks if you kept reading this far!

Another thing I probably should have mentioned is that I have some sort of objection to reviewing my own game. I just can never bring myself to do it. I guess it's because I usually take criticism very hard, and it knocks my confidence to see myself make mistakes. I still have yet to determine whether the confidence I gain from not reviewing my game outweighs the improvement I would make if I reviewed more often. I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

Most of what u wrote resonates a lot with me and Im sure it's the same for a lot of others too. I think poker makes most of us like this. Lazy, always looking for the easiest way out, etc. End up focusing too much on material things and what not. I've def changed a lot since I found poker and I was a v different person before it. So obv poker seems to be the common factor.

It's quite difficult to lead a well balanced life and to be able to maintain all life goals while being a poker pro. However, I'm sure u'll get there(optimal state). My advice to u would be to not be too hard on urself though. Cause I think u are being too hard on urself. The occasional takeaway/pizza is better than no takeaway/pizza at all. GL for the rest of SCOOP!

Oh and do u believe Henry, Jericho and Orton are winning tom as well? Need to make me some money

Yeah I am being pretty hard on myself, but I think it's necessary at times in order to weed out my 'life leaks'. I'm secure enough now mentally that I can be hard on myself while maintaining perspective, which I couldn't do a year or two ago.
Haha, I'm actually a little bit behind on WWE, pretty much everything in the last 6 months or so has been pretty dull. WM29 was really meh and I've not followed many of the angles since, especially with Punk being off TV. Never a bad idea to bet on Orton though (as dull as he is as a face), but I feel like Sheamus just rarely gets booked to lose, and they kinda need Fandango to keep winning or else they risk losing the little momentum he has left after they ran his gimmick into the ground over the past few weeks. I'm going with Lesnar in the cage though, that's the one match that has me excited since Lesnar matches are usually a bloodbath even if they're not booked that way.

great post man and 100% what i feel about myself these days. time to get our shts together id say huh

subbed

+10 EV Diff%

beasting it up again. 2/3 in big $162 legggggoooooooooooooooooooooooo

edit: 1/3!!!! i fistpumped so hard for u there man

Chopped 3-handed for 19k vs two very good players after a crazy 3-handed game. Sucked to lose the huge CL but not much I could do different. Let's crush again tomorrow! Feels goooood

gratz man

Post a hand that you felt you've played well everytime u hit something. In this way you may start reviewing, lol.
ty ty
gg gl tomorrow

another day, another good score, wp sir, wp