Nostalgic

This will be my last post in a while so it will be the last essay you have to read, should you choose to! It could be tl;dr so apologies in advance.

I've demonstrated traits normally attributable to women, in the last few months - indecision, fear, confusion. One minute poker is the greatest thing since sliced bread, the next, my exams are the most important thing in my life, or my girlfriend, or my friends, or going home. I was and am never able to strike that balance. My interests also differ weekly.

The thought processes have always been in the back of my mind but after talking aloud and discussing it, a decision has been found, brought forward from the depths of my brain somewhere. Its perhaps obvious, perhaps imminent or perhaps downright stupid. Either way, poker has just been knocked down a fair few rungs on the ladder.

My mindset isn't where it once was. I'm in a downswing, which has contributed to my lack of desire to play and most worryingly, my lack of desire to improve. That should be the other way round but when I have no desire to analyse hands nor boot up a table, one has to question their overall commitment.
I'm too engrossed in the enjoyment of being in a relationship, being at home with friends and family, having the capacity to do more things through financial security, organising birthday's, focusing on my career and degree. All of these things have slowly worked themselves up the priority list, sub-consciously and I can only assume that is due to my arrogance and complacency. I have achieved a lot in poker I feel and indeed, will continue to do so.

I deposited £300 on November 28th 2009. From that £300 I have now totalled withdrawals of £4289. That represents a huge sum of money for someone in my position - a full-time student. That also demonstrates a candid ability to beat the game. If I do say so myself.

However, all is not over and all is not lost.

In some respects I feel as if a new challenge may invigorate me and offer me a new sense of purpose. However, fundamentally, due to the environment I find myself in, putting in 6/7/8 hour sessions every night isn't feasible. Nor do I want to do that, I'd sooner be just chilling with family or being out with friends. The euros also seem to be in decline so that primarily led to my decision to withdraw everything from those, as opposed to anywhere else. I'll be in Greece for the month of August, bar a few days, I'll be in London next week etc etc, the list is endless. Poker requires commitment, opponents improve daily so I'm just falling further behind and effectively only increasing variance/downswings, which initially were my reason for not playing. I beat the game but I used that as an excuse not to improve at the same rate. Enough is enough.

I do love playing the game though and I will continue to do so. I have left about $1100 on Stars and will look at grinding the 90mans/45mans. These are something I can do with Jon also, which will probably entice me to improve alongside him and also instil the competitiveness back into our friendship, which will only spur us both on, I'm sure. I'll also continue to play the MTTs on Stars but be very selective and use a ratio. I'll give all of that some thought though and perhaps post at the end of the week.

I hope I don't live to regret the decision but I feel its a sensible one to reach following a very rewarding experience.

Now for the next stage of my "career"...

Its been a while...

I haven't posted in a while so I thought I best update on what I have been doing with my life!

So, it'll be a short post then!

I finally managed to move home a week ago and am extremely happy about that fact! I'll deal with how its affecting poker first and foremost. We had some trouble with various ISPs and as a result were internet-less until the middle of this week. It was great when it initially came - we were all getting 27mb for 48 hours despite not paying for that particular service. Now, we struggle to get 2 and literally I'm sure this is far from a broadband service; its awful! They say that it may take 10 days for the line to stabilise and, to be fair, if I can get 27 one day and 2 the next surely there will be some happy median, please?!?! Needless to say, its proving impossible to play poker on this service, although I have only attempted today for the first time.

I went to Jon's for a grinding session yesterday and, uniquely, we both had a profit session! I played a mix of $6 45man - $12 180s. They were really enjoyable and I felt its an interesting method of being able to improve my game. The only real downside was how long they took to fill up - the $12s in particular. This is a real pain in the arse but something I'll have to live with I guess. Despite it being a relatively small profit - $160, I do intend to start playing these a bit. When (I hope) the internet sorts itself out and finds a balance, I still have the issue of when I'm able to play and for how long so big sessions are something of a tall order. So I'm going to start mixing in some of these things and after the recent withdrawals and the downswing, it may offer an opportunity to grind it back up and find a suitable level of stability. Curse you variance!

Other than that, I've had a couple of great nights with friends, where pretty much everyone has made the effort to come out and have a catch-up. The highlight has to be last night, having been grinding the tables with Jon at his place we met up with Jack for a curry and couple of beers, a nice civilised evening... No. We stayed in our new found home - a pub in Newport until close and then made the terrible decision of going back to Jack's. Oh and via this god awful cocktail bar in Newport. I promise you I have never had a worse drink. Going to Jack's normally ends one way - badly. At least from a health point of view.. After playing a few live turbo's between 4 of us, we then felt the need to be flipping £1's for about 3 hours. £1, hand of poker dealt, winner takes all - £4. It was hilarious and probably the most baller/stupid thing we have ever done. I think I will take a deck of cards with me every time we go to The Barley now, its pretty epic. Having been £25 down at one point I ended up losing £3 in the end, on that game. I think Jon ended up the big loser, which was hilarious (sorry mate). Everyone bar Jack, who seems to have some sort of spiritual guidance when it comes to run good in his own house, went through a phase of losing exceptional amounts of money and there came a point where we just had to set a time limit - 5am, otherwise it would go on forever. At 4.30am I was £21 down lol and tilting like an absolute mother fucker. At 5am Jon was probably something in the region of £15 down. Hilarious.

Literally it was so much fun. Obviously I'm not sure if I would advocate the game so much if I was a big loser but even so, its variance and I'm sure it will happen again. Next time I go to the pub I'll be armed with loose change and a deck of cards.

So yeh, having got home at 8am and not slept I feel like absolute horse shit and question why the hell I ever do these things but hey, its evident from last night that summer is here, people are back and we'll have an awesome time. It shades a few years off my life when I go to Jack's but it sure as hell is worth it.