Starting from Scratch

Well this blog hasn't been updated in close to a year. I decided to start writing it again cause well. I've almost bustoed my roll for the third time and maybe if I blog the rebuilding process, it will give me a little accountability through out the process.

First let's look at why I am almost busto. three times in my life, I have had a BR of over $2000. The highest mine ever reached was $5600 when I moved up to 1/2 for a while. The last two time I busted my roll were just entirely stupid and my fault. I would after months of solid poker, I would have one bad night, blow a few buy-ins, move up stakes, and blow roll. I wish this is what happened this time, it would be much less painful. No this time my BR died a slow death. It really began back in September. I had a great summer last year, and was able to build up my roll to play 1/2. My hope was this this semester in China was supposed to be my "pro" year I had this dream starting in April 2007 that when I went to China I would be playing at least 2/4, and supporting a baller life style here. That obviously never happened. What did happen was I was waaaay too busy to play a lot during the fall semester girlfriend, friends, job, school are all priorities to me above poker. So I stopped. Every so often I would play, drop a buy-in here or there (never really ran good since August, a basically break even month for me). Then along came January. I had time off here in China waiting for the semester to start, so I decided to play. That week was one of the worst weeks of my poker career I basically lost half my roll (about 2k). I felt so lost at time, and completely doom-switched at others. But as soon as February started I ran really good, and played just as good, and was back up to 4.6k pretty fast. Huge swong, but no real worry. Then during the semester, supposedly by pro time, I barely played at all. Learning chinese took up much of my time, and I really couldn't play much during the good times to play, so I didn't. A few times I would play, never ran particularly well, and lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 1k during the semester. That was fine, no matter, this summer I would kick ass right? WRONG. I was a very busy man after the semester started and it took about three weeks before I found some solid time to play. Anyway I started with about 3.4k in my roll. as I write this I have $215 in my account, plus a $256 entry to the PLO/8 FTOPS event. I won't be cashing that in though because that is basically free money for me (provided I don't run ultra cold in that, last time I played I busted on the bubble with AA23ds).

So how did this happen? Well it wasn't cause I played under rolled. At no point until I got below 1k did I ever play under rolled. Really though I wish it was, that would be a much easier pill to swallow. Run ridiculously bad, yup. Play bad, even bigger yup. Lacked discipline, biggest yup of them all. I could save saved so much by quitting early in a lot of those sessions. But I didn't. I had the same pattern repeat over and over again. Start session. Win a buy-in or two. Get creamed in a big pot. blow off my winnings, plus an extra 4-6 buy-ins. Repeat this the next day. I guess I really did get addicted this month. My wins to start the session always convinced me I was playing good that day. The ensuing tilt fest said otherwise. In fairness to my self, I go over the hands and I really did run awful. But still I am pretty sure I just suck at poker. At least half of what I lost could have been avoided. Plus I think the game has legitimately become harder since I left. The UIEGA (and recent payment processors closings) in my opinion really is beginning to squeeze out the average joe and what's left is people how think much more about the game than the players of the pre UIEGA era. Plus my long layoff has once again put me behind the learning curve. Keeping all this in mind, I should not have spent almost everyday this month playing for 5-6 hours a day. But I did and now I have to have the reality of being significantly under rolled for where I want to play, and having myself to blame. Hence forth until by BR hits 3k once again, my FTP avatar will be a sad fish...

So now what do I do that I can't claim I am a winning player anymore? Quit poker? I was gonna go that when I hit 2k, but was talked about of it. The person who talked me out of it was right, but still at this point I obviously wish I had quit. I could go down to 25nl and grind back up. That would be the smart thing, but I am under rolled for that and I think just being in that game would tilt me. Instead I am going to go something I am also horrible under rolled for an short stack 100nl full ring until I am a winning player again. It's worked in the past, and I expect it to work again. I will be detailing my progress at the end of every session here, and yes, there will be graphs! Also at somepoint I will be making videos and article about short stacking at ninjahpoker, so hopefully I can teach others to do the same! Unfortunately it really hasn't gone well so far. I had another tilt spree today and managed to drop about $400 just shortstacking. Hopefully this won't be a real short return to blogging. Currently I'm playing a session as I write this, will give details on both after I finish.