Ready to Crash and Burn
Not the Red Baron, I'm sure.
Not Charlie's wonderful dog.
Not anyone I really know.
Just another pilot down.
Greetings from the bottom of the barrel. If you haven't been following along, I'm not scraping it; I've broken through and kept on tunneling to see what's below. I think Phil Hellmuth is down here somewhere, playing cards with a Bobblehead RealDoll version of himself and Stuey Ungar. I bet I'll find Ted Binion in the corner, doing a line of coke off a stripper's ass.
It's hard to believe I could blow through a $2800 bankroll in 30 days, but that's what I did. If you haven't been able to tell, I'm oddly calm about all of this, which I find to be... well, interesting. There was a discussion recently - I wish I could remember where, but I have trouble remembering to comb my hair in the morning - about reaching a threshold where you go "numb" to the pain and misery of the suckouts, the tilt, the bad play. I think I hit that stage when I dropped down to $250 a few weeks ago, and this was just finishing off what was started back then. There was some good play in between, of course, notably my play (or maybe only my results?) in the Above Malibu tournaments, but by and large I think I played like crap, and when I wasn't playing like crap, I was either card-dead or getting outdrawn.
Eventually, the numbness kicked in. That was probably when the break was in order, but I cavalierly plowed ahead, determined to start the road back right away. The glaring red number staring back from the spreadsheet, the number that hadn't been red in a long, long time, was searing into me, my own Eye of Sauron, willing my onwards in my own quest for bankroll redemption. Nasssty hobbitses, we wants the Precious back! Except Gollum was a villain in the story, and Frodo was Christ, carrying his great burden and wanting to do nothing more than put it down and even having Sam help him carry it a portion of the way... so I guess that analogy doesn't really work.
Yes, yes, I'm a geek. Let's move past that, shall we?
Felicia had an interesting post yesterday about spotting the sucker at the table. Just because "you've got game" doesn't mean you're not the sucker. Take me and 5/10 6-max. I know aggression is key in those games, but I just naturally assumed that since every one says the games are so juicy, I could beat them. What I didn't realize is that playing short-handed is a fundamentally different game than playing a full ring game. Or maybe, I realized it, but I didn't make the right adjustments, do the appropriate reading, and figure out how to beat the game at a lower level before jumping into 5/10. That made me the sucker at the 5/10 6-max tables.
Can I beat those games? I'm sure I can. The point is that I wasn't properly equipped at that time, from a studying, research or experience standpoint. And let's not forget my psychological state. So much of poker is tied into psychology, and I was reeling from a really bad run at 15/30. May as well have just chugged a kerosene cocktail and thrown a lit match down my throat. I might have had better results.
And here I am, at the bottom. With $0.38 in my Party account, there's no going lower than this. The plan right now is to not play online for the rest of the month. That won't stop me from playing live games, of course -- the Wednesday tournament at Above Malibu is a bewitching siren, and the Radio Poker Tour is planning a special President's Day trip to Atlantic City. That will be followed up by a blogger get-together in LA late next week at Commerce or Hollywood Park (perhaps), so I'll get a chance to rekindle my hatred of the structure of LA-area NLHE cash games.
I -might- try a few of these Party Player Points freerolls to see if I can hit a free score, because I have the points to burn, but there will be no other online poker. I finished the process of consolidating my bankroll, and since I blew through the last $50 at Party, it stands at $388. That's fine. Come March, I'll dump that into Paradise and start grinding the 1/2 games. Not before that.
It's a long road back, but I've got the time. Hopefully I can find the right attitude in the interim.