And the Beat Goes On
I realize I’ve kind of been doing a bad job lately of keeping this blog updated. To be honest, I’ve kind of lost a lot of the motivation I had to keep writing. Well, I shouldn’t say I lost my motivation to write on here, I haven’t, I’ve just lost my interest in keeping this blog going in the same style and manner that I have for over two years now. Most of the posts I make on here don’t really contain many “thoughts”, they’re more just a collection of general life and gambling updates. I want to try to scale back on those and focus more on “thought”-based writing, but that’s a lot harder to do than write “oh I final tabled some event and won $11,000 for 4th after Ace-King lost to Ace-Jack.” It actually takes work and it’s also a lot riskier since you might share some stupid/wrong thoughts that you later wince at having put on the Internet.
One poker blogger who is really good at sharing thoughts and philosophies is Alec Torelli. I mean, I think a fair amount of his thoughts seem like those of an early-20s guy, so it’s not like the deepest wisdom out there, but what I most appreciate is his effort to blog some deeper thoughts. I hope to make that same effort in this blog from now on. I can definitely improve at articulating thoughts. Sometimes I feel like I have some pretty amazing/valuable thoughts, but I have them in what seems like a flash. Conveying them into words is tough because I can’t type or even speak nearly as quickly as the thought materialized through my mind.
Lately, I haven’t been focusing on poker much at all. Playing somewhat infrequently has been nice though. For me anyway, I find it hard to constantly play at a high level without my thoughts turning stale. There’s so much to be said for taking a step back once in a while and challenging yourself in other areas. I see the game a lot better when I take regular breaks. I couldn’t imagine playing 10 hours a day every day of the year. It seems like it would be really easy to slip into a zombie-like state of mind where after a while you’re just going through the motions. In my experience, that’s usually a recipe for losing.
Today, I played the Sunday Million and a couple of other smaller tournaments after not having played at all for two weeks. It felt great. At one point I had about as many chips in the Million as I ever have but fizzled out with a min-cash. I think one worry I’ve had in the past that I wouldn’t be surprised to learn a lot of other players have is that taking a break might lead to sort of “losing” your poker mind. That hasn’t been my experience at all. If anything, I feel even sharper after a break. I mean, I’ve gotten pretty good at no-limit hold’em tournaments. I feel like I think at a fairly high level. A couple of weeks off isn’t going to rot that all away. A couple of years might, but not a couple of weeks.
In general though, I just haven’t had the desire to invest a lot of effort in getting better at poker. Like, I suppose I could spend a bunch of time and energy trying to get really good at mixed games or something, but I’m inclined to think that the value added to my life from doing so wouldn’t be worth it. There are so ways beyond playing cards to better yourself and make money. I like no-limit hold’em tournaments and am pretty good at them. I plan on continuing to play them at least semi-seriously for probably years to come. But beyond that, I’m pretty disinterested in spending a bunch of energy to get better at poker.
Last year, pretty much all I did was play poker. I traveled constantly to tournaments and played online every Sunday. I probably had a little bit more of a balanced life than some guys have, but it was still not nearly as balanced as it has been lately. In a way, losing a bunch of money on the election was kind of a blessing in disguise. Not only did I learn a ton about life and money, but it also forced me to kind of scale back on chasing tournaments all over the place. Traveling to casinos to sit on your ass and play poker is a pretty horribly unhealthy existence. I’m definitely way more in shape and toned-up right now than I was this time a year ago. Well, I think I am anyway but maybe I’m not. I played touch football with some friends for a couple hours last Wednesday and I’m still sore!
To the few of you who visit this blog semi-regularly and have begun to question why you do so following the lack of updates, my apologies. Going forward, I can’t promise that the frequency of updates will improve, but hopefully the content will. Have a nice week, everyone.
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