A New Outlook

My recent downswing/bad run on Poker Stars has got me to thinking about what I truly want to get out of the recreational play I submit myself to on a daily basis. I feel as though I have such high expectations for myself and my results that it's hard to feel good about a win if it's not significant. When I say significant I mean winning 10 - 25% of my bankroll in a single session. At times I've had such good fortune in poker that it makes these current times (when the BR is low and grinding is the way) hard to stomach.

Take for example living on Steak and potatoes and top notch sea food for a given time frame in your life and then abruptly having to scale down your lifestyle to ramen noodles and boxed mac and cheese. This is a major lifestyle change and one that doesn't kill you...but definitely slaps you in the face with reality. Not to mention makes you take a step back and question how you got yourself in this current situation.

My story can easily be followed over the duration of this blog but to give you the cliff notes of the tortuga0981 story...I've always had a passion and understanding of the game, made money, used profit to pay for trips and gifts for others and myself, but in times of vulnerability I've shown immaturity in making bad monetary decisions. Decisions like playing over my head or pulling off money and then with a lower BR continuing to play at the limits I am use to. These are obvious red flags in terms proper BR management and I know this. Why then do I make these bad decisions? Well for one, because I've played above my head many times and won money before.

So what then is this sudden epiphany or new outlook that I speak of? Well a few days ago I was reading two different articles on 2+2 that opened my eyes to what I really should be looking at in terms of where I'm at in my poker career. I was down on my luck and thinking nothing could go my way until I read these. The two articles were by Ireguy and Gigabet and can be found in the links below.

Ireguy's Article
Gigabet's Article

Both of these articles really put things into perspective for and gave me this new outlook that I speak of. Yeah times have been bad, both due to my doings and not, but regardless I know I love the game and can win while playing.