:(

I've decided that I'm going to take the rest of the year off playing wise. I'm clearly not playing well and losing thousands of dollars. I have a myriad of issues while playing, mainly tilt, that I need to concentrate on before taking the next step in my poker career. Thankfully I'm overrolled but still, the quality of my play has been disgusting the last few days.

We'll see how long this lasts. If I feel I'm in the right state of mind I still might yet play, we'll see.

I haven't been running well, that's for sure. But even more importantly, I haven't been playing well. I'll be the last person to pin point the blame to something other than myself. To be honest, I've been very lazy in my poker learning these days, rarely looking or discussing hands, not watching videos, not analyzing HEM, etc. (Which I recently bought, haven't touched it much). I feel like I need a rejuvenation in my game, not sure how I can attain it. I'm not nearly as dedicated to this game as I once was (and that's not to say I think I'm awesome or anything, far far far from that).

I think self-analysis is the best tool when facing a downswing. I have had worse downswings in my life (namely the -7k night in April which resulted into a $15k downer). Regardless, I'm currently at about -20 buyins at 2/4 (most of it being from PLO). The game is obviously very high variance and I lost most of my buyins in less than 4k hands. Pretty crazy. Most of it was losing the 60/40 flips that are so vital for success or failure in this game. (And obviously the 55/45s/etc).

Some things I need to focus on-

-Tilt control. This is especially vital in a game such as PLO, where it is so easy to convince yourself that you can 'gambol' it up when in reality you are really getting it in as an equity dog every time. While I might suck out sometimes, I'm not doing myself any favors in the long run. I need to realize that many of the short term results don't matter and just focus on the long run. I wish I could just shrug but ughhhh...

-Rekindling my poker learning. I recently did a session with my old coach (and plan on doing more in the future for sure). I need to start looking through HEM and PLOtracker and figure out what I'm doing wrong and how to correct it. I've been lazy far too long, both in hand amounts and hand analysis. I also plan on watching videos like I used to.

-Humbling myself. Telling myself that 1/2 isn't a big deal and there is no shame in playing it. I plan on playing 1/2 PLO/1/2 NLHE until I make the 8k back again. While this may take a month or two, I think it'll be good for my overall poker life.

Anyways, yeah. I suck at poker. I still plan on coaching through this struggle, as well as finishing out my series with DC. We filmed video 7 of our series and 8 should be done by Sunday. Wrapping this series up should be good, I'm proud of the content we put out. Meh.

In other news, I took up rock climbing. Should be a cool new hobby that is beneficial in more ways than one. I've only gone a few times but it's a ton of fun and super brutal exercise wise. I took a class and now know how to belay/tie knots (sorta)/etc. I plan on buying some climbing shoes this winter and coming back hard after break. Rock climbing involves a ton of muscles you don't typically use, mainly fingers, forearms, and back (and legs of course).

Finals are also coming and going, I have two. I can't wait to get out of here and go back home. I still haven't decided what I'm really doing for christmas break, other than the Miami game. I'd like to go skiing maybe or perhaps somewhere else (warm). I'm not doing the PCA this year because the OU game is right during it. My sleep and eating schedules are also fucked as well, I haven't gone to the store in a month. Pretty much just eating out and eating minimally. I also woke up at 3p.m. yesterday after going to bed at 6, which disgusts me. I partially fixed it today though and woke up at only 1:30 so meh.

Anyways, meh, poker sucks. I suck at life.