Winter Break

I have a memory of one particular afternoon during my freshman year of college that is equally vivid and random. I had just finished my last final of the semester, took the T back to my dorm and blasted this song as soon as I walked into my room:



My long term memory isn't very good, but I was in such a great mood that afternoon that I still remember what I put on the stereo. That's how I feel right now. The Bellagio $1,590 prelim was today, and I busted out after a half hour making a completely indefensible play. On my way home, I decided that I was going to shut it down for the rest of 2009 and it felt awesome. Since my last post, I've made enough to probably cover my tax write-offs, so I have an extra incentive to call it a year. Also, my desktop started acting up again last night, so I'll be taking it into the shop in search of a permanent solution. With my live poker schedule finished and not being able to use my dual monitor setup for the near future, there aren't too many reasons to look forward to playing poker until next year. Throw in some Sundays watching football on the couch and extra time to watch videos and I think the next three weeks will be a good break before I start grinding again in January.

I've actually had a decent amount to write about through the first week of December but haven't had the motivation to blog. A couple of those things are somewhat embarrassing, at least from my perspective. If you've been following my posts, you know I'm struggling with confidence as a result of my year long breakeven stretch. Given how much I've accomplished in poker, confidence really shouldn't be an issue. Still, it's hard to think that I'm doing things right when I keep losing. In an attempt to keep a positive frame of mind, I printed out the handful of articles about me from various sites and taped them to the wall in front of my computer. Perhaps even more narcissistic, I put my WSOP Circuit ring on my desk, right next to a trophy and the two watches I've received from winning tournaments at the Bellagio and Caesar's. In essence, I created a shrine to myself that I can't help but notice when I'm playing online. If I heard about somebody else doing this, I'd think it was incredibly pathetic and lame. It seems like a good idea though, as long as I'm doing it to boost confidence and not to brag about what I've won in the past.

Based on the obviously insufficient sample size of three sessions this month, I can confirm that the strategy to boost my confidence was a success. I've played two Tuesday nights with little success, but my first and only Sunday session of the month went well. I played 28 tourneys, cashed in eight, had two final tables and finished the day up $18k. I'm sure it was a coincidence, but I made a point to skip the $500 on UB, $163r on Tilt, and the $700 PCA sat and $215r on Stars. I wanted to lower my variance to slow my descent to being breakeven on the year, and also figured it couldn't hurt to spend a Sunday playing fewer tables with easier competition. My third place finish in the UB $200k brought my yearly profits to $32k, enough to ensure that I wouldn't have a losing year. That was a nice feeling.

I've played a few Five Diamond prelims at the Bellagio this month as well. Even though I final tabled the first one, I bricked the other two and lost money overall. When I don't play live for extended periods of time, it has a negative effect on my game. It's hard to explain why, but there are aspects of live poker that are so different from online that you almost forget about unless you avoid taking months off from live MTTs at a time. At the final table of the $1k, I jammed 21 blinds from the button with A2o and busted ninth when the small blind woke up with QQ. I could write a ton about that hand, but the bottom line is that while my shove can be proven to be +EV, it isn't +$EV and is certainly suboptimal. Raise/folding is far superior, something that I'm obviously aware of but for some reason chose to ignore in the heat of the moment. Those mistakes rarely happen when I've been playing in the casinos more than once or twice over a five month span.

Speaking of playing live, and going back to embarrassing myself, I decided to start wearing sunglasses at the poker table. In the past, I've sort of hid my eyes underneath my hat when involved in a big pot. I always felt more comfortable not letting my opponents look at my eyes, but it also meant that I couldn't observe other people during key moments. Thinking it might help me feel more comfortable at the table as well, I brought my sunglasses to the Venetian $2,500 last month. I couldn't see a damn thing. Wearing dark glass in a poorly lit room is a bad idea when you're playing hands for thousands of dollars in equity. After realizing I couldn't tell the $100 and $500 chips apart, I decided to step up the lameness and invest in - you guessed it - poker sunglasses. Sigh. It pains me to have become that guy, but I've been wearing them at the Bellagio and am very happy with my decision. I like being able to pick up subtle things about my opponents without having them know I'm watching them (yes, I realize that sounds creepy). When the $25k rolls around in April and I find myself at a table with someone like Phil Ivey, I'll be glad to know that it'll be at least somewhat harder for him to see into my soul.