What I Learned from August

Posted by icemonkey9 on Sep 1, 2009 in Results | 3 comments

August 2009 is over and poker-wise I couldn't be happier.  As you've probably read from my last post, right at the 200nl shot things went south in a hurry.  Clearly any downswing has several elements. I imagine a good equation looking like:

Variance + Coolers + (Tilt * Bad Plays) = Downswing

I admit to all happening. Right at that peak things just stopped clicking. The KK vs AA over and over ... AA losing to KK and QQ over and over ... overpairs continually cracked by random hands or sets ... set under sets ... flushes under flushes ... hitting sets 19% less than the statistically expected rate, and more and more. You get the picture by now. Basically the last half of August was spent eating poop.

The good news is that I learned I do still tilt, but the silver lining is that it's not nearly as bad as it used to be. That's a real good thing if I want to look at a long term future with poker in any sort of part or full time capacity. I also learned I'm still really good and keeping myself in line with stop losses and continue to be smart about analyzing hands.

The *real* good news is that I actually ended up in the positive despite the bad ending to the month. I really could imagine it all ended up in the negative the way things went. But it did not, so hooray for that.

The focus now is just putting in smart sessions where I make the best decision possible. Nit poker is winning poker for me. Here's to making September the best month I possibly can.