Uphill Battle

Just a few days ago I reported that how this was my highest earning month. At that point I was at 800. I looked at my daily averages and I found that I could very well get myself to 1000.

One of the things that I did in order to try this was “bonus whoring” (as my wife likes to call it). I got an email from Paradise that any reloads starting this last Friday to yesterday (Sunday) would be given a 10% bonus. Kewl! So, I cashed out most of my money and waited to Friday to redeposit. Come Friday, I redeposit and started playing to try to build up my rake in order to release the bonus money.

I’ve always wondered how I would do without hit-and-running on Paradise. Well, this short amount of time is probably not a great indication, but it’s pretty rocky! I was hoping that my normal playing would at least keep me break even, if not over. That, combined with the bonus money that I had coming, I’d get up to my thousand dollar goal. Nope. If anything, the bonus money kept me even!

I started thinking about it; my play, my pressing for the bonuses. I think I stopped doing something that was critical to my game plan. I didn’t leave tables when I found them bad. I was so focused on getting to my thousand goal, I kept playing when normally I would have quit. Especially against certain opponents. Therefore, I stopped playing my game and focused too much on the bonus whoring and that milestone.

From reading Roy Cooke’s book, he talks about reviewing your game. I have had to do this in my uphill battle. I used the power of the Internet to my advantage in the past; to be able to get up and move to a different table at a moments notice. Allowing me to record a quick win, escape aggressive players, and keeping my game more of a mystery by not staying long at any particular table.

So here I sit on the last day of the month, still $40 short of my goal. I’ve played more today, and have just covered my loss for yesterday. I think I’m going to take a rest and not be so concerned of going those last few feet. Normally, you’d want to keep pressing. The pinnacle is so close you can see it, it’s just a few more feet away. But the struggle has left you so short of breath, the air so thin. I rather not put myself at peril. I can tell my game is suffering from the pressing. I’m not focused on my game, but my goal. I’m going to take a breather and put my game first.

Yesterday Felicia said that I was snippy with her all day. Thinking about it, I probably was stressing so much from having so many losing sessions. Yet another reason to take a break. The pressing was affecting my emotions as well.

All in all, I’m very happy with how much I made this month. Not quite getting there gives me a goal for next month. However, this time, I’m keeping to my game plan!

"It's important not to let a situation like this drive you to chase in future situations because of the taste of what-might-have-been. The biggest losers over time in poker are those who let results, rather than analysis, drive their decision making."
Real Poker II, The Play of Hands, by Roy Cooke

Posted by Glenn