Perspective

This past week has been a real grind. Cards not falling my way at vital pots, and being a bit unlucky heads up. My ITM is really low at 35.7% (should be around 37+), but those 1sts has saved me from it being much much worse...

I've been pretty well disciplined tho, making sure I play my 90 games a day minimum. The prop bet with Usher is good motivation, I'm just shy of earning 10k VPPs this month. This final week will be the biggest test though, because I know he's a sick marathon grinder, so I will up my game full well assuming he will too. I'm NOT losing that money...

Last night I noticed that when I run bad, I pretty much abandon all the strategies that I've learned and start going shove happy. Its so much easier to go all in, instead of get maximum value in every situation. Sure, you might not get a huge amount of value, but with the amount of games I play it all adds up and I need the smallest bits of edge I can find.

For me, its scary because without keeping perspective, you can never realize what your doing wrong. That's why its a good idea to have other players to talk to, so that you can get that unbiased perspective.

I really love this quote:

"Everybody will eventually run worse than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is that the latter thinks they do not deserve it. "

--Irieguy (From 2+2)

My friend who had won a lot of money from scoring big in some tournaments hates this quote. He says that he thinks that Irieguy is an idiot for calling him a loser. Also, he points out that there are lots of guys out there who win when they think that they deserve it.

The point is, its all about the attitude. The "Winners" in this quote are not about talking about the short term big scorers, but the long term grinding, learning, thinking, improving, players that hit the tables every day. They understand that cards fall randomly, and there is no such thing as deserving to win or targeted victims of losing. In a fucked up way his crappy dead end job and all other guys in my school's are a constant reminder and inspiration to keep doing what I'm doing now.

Just like a marathon, a lot of it is mental. The best players will be mentally strong, and have their poker foundations intact. They will run bad, but also minimize their losses by continuing to play their best. Losing is disconnected with how good one is playing.

Last week, Jay Weezey is offering a 3-1 prop bet on him completing a 10k STT month at the $16s in November. He must make at least $5k in profits at any point within the month, but imo this is pretty insignificant considering he's already making $1.25 per game.

To complete this challenge, he must play an average of 334 games a day. From what I've researched, his biggest volume in one month is 2600 games, so 5x'ing that amount is completely insane.

There is a big difference between someone like Nick Rainey doing a bet like this. Why? Because Nick has a lot of experience doing super long sessions, grinding huge amounts of volume, and more importantly keeping his head.

I don't question Jay Weezey's ability to grind out those games, and sure the $25k is certainly an amazing incentive. But in my opinion he is gonna be psychologically mindfucked beyond anything he's experienced. The fact that he cannot stop playing is going to be the worst thing for him, and lack of experience will make him unable to complete the challenge. I would bet against him, but unfortunately I cant afford it right now...

However, GL to him, and its certainly gonna be interesting to watch, and hey, who knows, maybe I'll be proven totally wrong and he'll become a legend from it!