Downer

There is nothing enjoyable about losing $2k in two days. Not when you don’t get anything in return for your money. No entertainment value, no gifts for loved ones, not even a donation to a needy and worthy cause. I could’ve used that money to pay off some debt, or to help move me out of my one bedroom off-strip apartment. It could’ve gone a long way outside of the poker world, towards groceries, bills, fun and experiences… But inside the poker world, it’s just two bad days of work.

What happened?

There is nothing remarkable about how it happens anymore. You send your betting chips across the betting line while holding the best poker hand, and then the best hand becomes the worst hand, and then your betting chips are no longer your betting chips. Or, you maneuver your chips in the same manner with what you were damn sure was the best hand, but it turned out to not be the best hand, and the betting chips are similarly no longer yours. That sums up every single bad beat story ever told, and it sums up my last two days of live $2/$5NL and $1/$3PLO, and $.25/.$50PLO online.

There is always something to take away from every session, even the losing ones.

You don’t even feel like you learned much, other than how to “deal with the swings.” I don’t think it gets any easier, ever. Downswings suck. They not only impede your progress and move you further away from your goals in life that you are working so hard to achieve, but they flat out make you question what you are doing with your life. That’s the hardest part for me and I know it is the same for virtually every full time player.

Big opportunity over the next few days! Super Bowl weekend = action at the tables.

The bigger the missed opportunity, the worse it feels. You still have to run good, no matter how much action that whale with the Texas A&M hat is providing from the 3 seat. And running bad in action games does nothing but damage to your net worth.

Hey, at least you don’t need an alarm clock in your life. This is the cost of having the ultimate freedom from work.

The unemployed have lots of freedom, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t celebrating it. Sometimes you think about how nice it would be to never lose money after a day of work. Punching the clock starts to sound better than being bitch slapped by the deck.

You gotta battle through it. Keep putting in the hours and the results will show.

Ah, your hourly rate. You can always point to your hourly rate… even through the rough patches! It’s always there, shining like a beacon through the thick dark haze of downswing hell. I just hate do keep doing this damage to my hourly rate, when my hourly rate has been so kind to me in the past. Why do I want to keep hurting it like this?

Take a break, man. Come back when your head is clear.

I’ve just put an email in to the customer service department at AT&T, letting them know that I will be taking a break from my iPhone bill while I get over this severe case of downswingitis. Should get a response from them any minute saying “np, glgl.”

It could be worse. You have your health, family, friends… You could’ve been born in Nigeria or something.

You have a point.