oh the irony

so just after i posted about getting unstuck i thought i'd hit the tables for a quick session, nothing too intense just a speedy hit and run. so there i was, about even when this happened


i'm thinking great, set over 2 pair, only four outs can ruin this, i'll take it down and off i go...then

awesome, i'm stuck again! anyhoo, i hung around and managed to get myself back in the green but i was so close to freaking out, i guess it was a good lesson in tilt control which i managed to pass but oh so annoying none the less!

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whats more satisfying?

i haven't been running or playing that well so far in feb. i've had moments of genius followed by bigger moments of stupidity leaving me behind rather then significantly ahead. the times i've been ahead its business as usual but when i'm behind there seems to be something strangely satisfying about it!

little crazy sounding but when i'm winning, i'm just winning. i don't impose any stop win system, i just play till i start to feel like i'm losing concentration and then i'll log off and chill out a bit. however when i'm stuck everything seems to become clear. if i'm far behind then i'll usually write the session off and focus on one single goal, and thats to get unstuck. as soon as i hit the green, whether it be as little as 10 cents i'll usually log off and feel extremely satisfied with myself. i feel like i've achieved something that having a winning session doesn't really give me. i feel like i've climbed out of a hole and played good solid poker to do so, as usually its loose wayward play that has got me in that situation in the first place.

i don't think its just me that feels this way, i think its universal. i think getting unstuck is a poker players mount everest, its never easy and requires real concentration, effort and self restraint, its a grind if you will. but when achieved it really is like conquering a nemesis.

so to me, getting unstuck is actually more satisfying then booking a straight forward winning session. i feel like i've saved myself and what ever the win is, no matter how small, feels like a resounding victory.

so here's to getting yourself stuck just to have the pleasure of unsticking yourself!

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stress

stress is something that everyone experiences throughout their lives. whether the stress comes from work, home or other its never a pleasant experience.


i'm currently hugely stressed at work due to problems caused by colleagues which i'm having to sort out. its the usual backroom staff screwing things up with absolutely no regard to what happens in the front office. the problem with workplace stress is that its constantly changing, one day it can be due to x the next day y. the following week it can be z, q and s, who knows! its therefore very hard to work out a way to deal with that stress because no two situations are the same.

professional poker players as a rule are subject to high levels of stress as well. this can stem from, amongst other things, wagering huge amounts of money on a single hand, being down to their last buy in or having their tournament lives on the line. however the advantage a poker player has is that there is really only a limited scenarios that can cause you stress. yea, sure you can argue that no two hands or tournaments are the same, but essentially the stress causing principles are the same. a bad beat is a bad beat, getting knocked out a tornie is the same regardless, so once a poker player has experienced these situations 10, 20, 100 times their stress reaction to them is diluted or reduced. Over time a great poker player experiences almost zero stress to any situation because they have been their before, and any sign of stress or an adverse reaction could be construde as a tell, obvioulsy not recommended.

you may wonder where i'm going with this, well my point is, that although a professional poker player may experience a higher level of stress then a regular 9 to 5'er in the earlier part of their career, i would say that the longer they play the less stress they experience, whereas poor old 9 to 5'er still has the same ever evolving stress quotient!

so my conclusion is that basically the more stressed i get on the 9 to 5'er side of the fence, the greener it looks on the other side. the only way to tell is experience both, which is out of reach for most but as it stands now, i'd rather be taking a bad beat on the cyber felt which i know how to handle then dealer with the muppets in the backroom!

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