Can't Get Motivated

In my last post I eluded to the fact that I was taking some time off from poker. I last played last Sunday, not including a short 30 minute session a few days ago. My plan was to not play for 1 week at least, not until after Super Bowl Sunday. I wanted to take some time off for a few different reasons. I had been going so hard that I just felt I needed to take some time off to recharge the batteries. Also, as my volume of play had gone up, so had the number of bad beats I was seeing. These bad beats were putting me on Monkey Tilt. At the same time, my 45 man game had gone to shit. (45 man games are 9 table tournaments). 45's were a constant money maker for me, but of late, they had become my worst game. Some time off would also allow me to get caught up on some much needed sleep as well as spend some more time with the family. Studying and improving one's game is a must for any serious poker player and as long as I was playing, I wasn't going to take time to study. So this was another goal for during my time away.

During my time away, I have slept about 2 -2.5x longer each night. I have been reading 2 different poker books, watched 1 poker training video, and spoke to a couple of different coaches about training sessions for next week. Friday night, we celebrated my brother-in-law's 21st birthday. My mother-in-law watched the kids and I got drunk and partied for the first time in probably 2+ years. This past week has been great, and I have had very little urge to play poker.

However, today, I got a small itch to play. Sunday's are like Saturday's to College football, or Sunday's to Pro football. All the biggest tournaments are played on Sunday's. For $22, you can enter into Full Tilt's Double Deuce which offers a guaranteed prize pool of $200,000. First place pays a minimum of $31,000. For $11, you can enter Poker Star's 1/4 million that features a $250,000 minimum prize pool. Those are not even the biggest prize pool tournaments offered on Sunday's.

Due to the Super Bowl starting at 6:30, I decided to only play in a couple of tournaments. I played in a couple of satellite tournaments and did well. I started by playing in a $3.30 Sit and Go and won an entry into the $8.70 SNG satellite. I also won the $8.70 which paid a $26 tournament ticket. I played both of these on auto pilot. I used my $26 ticket to try to win a seat into today's $216 FTOPS Event #1, which offers a $1 million guaranteed prize pool. As of 5:00pm, the prize pool has risen to $1.2 million. About the time I started the $26 satellite, I bought straight into the $11 1/4 million event. I busted out of the satty, and played with no passion in the 1/4 million. It didn't matter what cards I had, I simply tried to bully the other players by throwing my chips around as if I had an endless supply. I tried to pull a triple barrel bluff with nothing but a 9 high. That left me with a third of the starting chips. I didn't have the patience to rebuild my stack. Therefore I limped with 3 6 and called a late position raiser. I proceeded to shove all my chips in on a dry flop and was quickly called by pocket aces. I busted out in about 10 minutes, but I didn't care.

The only thing I can think about now is how much of a grind poker really is. To win, or make it to the final table of any online tournament with 500 or more players, you will be playing for 5 hours at least. When I won the Midnight Madness, there were over 2,000 players and I think it lasted 7 or 8 hours. The beats are also very taxing. Poker is kind of like hitters in baseball. You are going to experience failure more than success. So to continue to lose, lose, lose, min cash, take a bad beat, and another bad beat, followed by a min cash, it is very tough mentally. However, like baseball, striking out 3 times only to hit a game winning home run in your last at bat of Game 7 in the World Series, 1 win makes the long hours and endless bad beats well worth it. Hopefully, once I officially end my hiatus, my passion and motivation will reappear and drive me to new poker highs.