Creatures of Habit
Humans, by nature, are considered creatures of habit. We come up with habitual routines in order to have purpose and structure. Myself, for example, I have started coming to the same coffee shop every morning, pretty much ordering the same thing and I sit here and I’m trying to bash out daily blog posts (or somewhere close to daily). I consider it a healthy habit. It allows me to do some writing, which is an area I’d most like to move into post poker, it allows me to track and be accountable for my poker and I think in turn that leads to a more polished, professional me.
The issue with some habits is that not all of them are great, as a society we’re plagued with what many would consider unhealthy habits, from eating, to drinking to smoking etc. My worst habitual habit is that about twice a year since I’ve been a pro I’ve punted off in the pit. Last night was the first time this year, the only certainty is that there will be a second time later in the year. After a few drinks we hit the blackjack and we lost
£10k each in the space of one pint. Not ideal. The funny thing is I really don’t like gambling. I’m the proverbial when I win it doesn’t feel good and when I lose it feels really bad. I do enjoy the company of people and one some level I think we played blackjack because it was time hanging out and that felt fun. The vacuousness of the activity can’t be ignored however and we took a good day and turned it into something disappointing. That’s something that’s a habit, a bad one.
Losses like this push retirement back each time and that’s probably the saddest thing.
Disclaimer: Gambling stories, in this author’s opinion, are always boring. I apologise for spouting it but a healthy habit is to stand accountable for downfalls as well as successes and I hope my consistently shaming myself it’ll stop a bad habit.
Poker, a Lighter Topic
I played the Vic Thursday night and we had what was close to a 10/25 for the first time in a long time. The game was soft and fairly fiery at times. I got to meet a fellow stars PLO grinder in
Naktro91, a man who has fleeced me hard at 2/5zoom and unsurprisingly played very well live also, nice dude too. For me the night was pretty drab, I’ve been back in the lab looking at pre flop stuff and as a result I think I remained pretty solid on my hand selections. I booked a modest
£1650 win and that was that, solid night at the office. No interesting spots though unfortunately.
Last night after the blackjack disaster I returned to my lonely flat and bashed out the $1k turbo on Stars, I really like these turbo’s, I think they suit my reckless style very well. The run good continues as I managed to cash my 3rd high roller event out of 4 played. Disappointing again though to be well situated only to end with a min cash but I couldn’t complain as I booked a hell of a lot of bounties to make it an ok score. I also won about
$4k @ 2/5zoom on the day, which was obviously very welcome after the pit dust.
My brother is in town from Manchester today so I’ll be fading any tournaments but I’ll likely be back at it tomorrow playing the
$2k PLO. My buddy wants me to play the main too so I’ll possibly flick that in for morale.
Have a run good weekend everybody.