Oh, boy.
Complicated day yesterday. Things were coasting along until we had our aces cracked twice in very harsh fashion. One was a brutal river that a player made bad but not horrible calls to see. I forget the other one. Then Kings cracked where I KNEW on the flop the guy flopped 2 pair against them (actually that was a great read on my part to see that but NOT great AT ALL to not proceed accordingly). Then went on tilt, calling a $300 all in where I had the over pair Queens with the bigger flush draw against a made flush. Horrible given my position. Calling another all in on a flush and gutter ball draw. Tilt, trying to get even, etc. etc.
The bottom line is finishing down $427 down and an obnoxious $739 in mistakes. We take away the mistakes and we would have been up $312 which sounds humble for a 12 hour session (that's actually almost exactly what I expect to make) but if we combine that with Saturday's winnings we arrive at nut 1 as far as expectations on this trip which would have been sooooo sweet only 2 days in (with 2 to go). Instead we find ourselves very slightly profitable from play ($84 in 23.5 hours on the biggest holiday of the year in an action packed room
and after expenses in the red on the trip.
We realize some things happened mentally. Felt great going in. Got an awesome workout, felt very balanced. The steady grind was going ok but then those two pairs of Aces quickly got cracked and it completely threw us off track. If you can't handle that and not be thrown off track you simply can't be doing this - because the people chasing your hands is EXACTLY what you want over the long term. Definitely went into a trying to get even mode which only made things worse. The more disturbing part is we actually DID get even from grinding then coughed it up all over again. I know why that is too. No, wasn't drunk - only one beer with dinner. It was very late I was a ton of hours in, very mentally weak and faced with what seemed at the time were some questionable opportunities, but that were actually total donk plays. Very mad at myself, but also I still see a ton of opportunity without the mistakes. Saturday mistakes were minimized and it wasn't even a dream session, I just played good balanced poker. Yesterday I was faced with some pretty significant variance where I'd say I played perfectly, for about $400 or so in hands. Variance is going to happen and there's no getting around that. It's how you respond to it that makes you pro or not pro. So yeah $739 in mistakes in one session at 1/2 - NOT pro. Such a shame because such a perfect game for us and that's how we handled it. We'll be missing that action later in the week I can tell you that, and if we don't clean things up very quickly we'll really be regretting not taking advantage of it. As I have said time and time again variance is a necessary evil doing this (and in life), it's how you handle it that determines your outcome.
So, we move on and realize the opportunities are there if we stay on our game. The opportunities are also there for a bunch more mistakes and a complete catastrophe of a trip. Just because you were handed variance one day/week/month doesn't mean you're not going to get it handed to you again. And again. and Again. And if you handle it like a 14 year old being told he has to go to his room with no dinner - like I did, you will crash and burn quicker than you can say aces full, mikey.
Dusting it off and putting in a long one today. I do still feel some tilt but there's a way to shake that off quickly and it's called winning.
Everyone enjoy your Holiday and please be safe and please, please use discretion because life is up here but you comment below and the comments will always become common motivation to promote your show's next episode so your brain knows to keep going even though hope is far from this moment but you and I know it gets better when morning finally rears its head together we're losers, remember the future remember the morning is when night is dead.
