PDA

View Full Version : Rebuilding My Bankroll: Journal 2


MEbenhoe
11-01-2004, 02:10 AM
So you wanted emotion? You wanted personal details? This journal is for you. I mentioned in the last journal the stuff I was holding out for a future journal, well yeah it spilled out enough in these few days that I feel I had to post it in this one. Hope you enjoy.

Oct 29th

Today was an odd day. I had a very good day as far as the poker went, but everything else just added up to a very bad day. Its kinda hard to celebrate a good winning day when the other stuff around you is junk. The first thing is that today was my friend David’s last day here at UW La Crosse. David has recently been diagnosed with a brain tumor and needs to leave so he can get it operated on. The part that makes it even worse is that even after he has his operation, and it turns out to be the successful procedure that I know it will, he won’t be coming back to school here. Losing the closeness of a friend who you saw and hung out with every day is a hard thing, and puts it all in perspective that there are a lot more important things going on in the world that we need to pay attention to.

I have also developed a deep hatred for girls who don’t know what they want. The type of girl who leads you on to the point where you feel really close to her and that shes the one for you, and then she suddenly acts like you don’t exist. That in a nutshell is my problem with a certain girl I had been sort of seeing, but now I don’t have a clue in the world what to think of her.

As I usually get really pissed about this stuff late at night, and I have this thing about not wanting to talk about relationship problems with anyone even remotely close to the situation, Schneids being a fellow late nighter has heard a lot of my whining the last few nights. The other night he gave me possibly one of the best possible pieces of advice as to why I get so frustrated over a situation such as this, and I have to give him credit for it here. He told me that I’m a poker player, and I’m also a very mathematical and overall educated person, so when I arrive at a problem be it in real life or at the poker table I use logic to come up with the best possible move, and in poker there is always that correct move to make that can be found. However, when dealing with girls such as my good friend I spoke of, there is no logic behind what she wants or doesn’t want, and often taking the logical approach will do nothing but completely screw up the situation. This being the way things work messes with the way I think leading to this type of frustration. I’m thinking as much as I complain to him about this stuff, I may have to start hiring him out as my personal therapist.

I ended tonight by watching Big Fish with a friend of mine. I really enjoyed this movie(yeah I just saw it for the first time), but have to admit that for some reason or another some of the stuff in that movie just seemed to remind me of some of the personal junk I have going on and I just wound up ending the night feeling slightly depressed. Ahh well can’t win em all.

Anyways on to the actual poker playing. I played 3 sessions of 200 hands each on Stars today and wound up +$53.75 there for the day, averaging 8.96 BB/100. Then for some reason I got this urge to go waste one of the party skins bonuses. So I signed up for intertops and deposited $200 of my BR onto there. 250 hands later I had cleared my $40 bonus and made an extra $20 at the $1/$2 tables while I was at it. While this was a limited experience I can tell I’m definitely going to enjoy switching over to the party skins when I get up to the $1/$2 games full time, which looks like it may be pretty soon.

Bankroll Update: +$113.75 for a total of $549.34


Oct 30th

So you may be thinking, it’s the weekend and this guy is in college what the hell is he doing playing all this poker? Well for those of you who don’t know Halloween weekend in Wisconsin offers some amazing party opportunities, with a gigantic Halloween celebration taking place in Madison every year. That celebration being tonight there was basically an exodus of the majority of college students in La Crosse to Madison at some point or another this weekend. Why am I still here then sitting behind my computer? Because in my infinite wisdom I chose this weekend to start my goal of remaining sober through our track teams team trials that take place in Late November and December. Thus I’m stuck here with a few other stragglers with not a lot to do.

Today I chose to fill this gap by putting in 1300 hands. This was possibly my worst idea ever due to my current personal status. Let me just say my frustrations definitely leaked into my playing today. I was playing just plain bad, and I was letting bad beats get to me way too much. Also I say in the first sentence that I chose to put in 1300 hands, yes I chose to, but that definitely was not my plan going into the day. I just kept playing and kept getting more and more pissed off. I basically failed one of the first rules of poker, and that is don’t play while you’re mad. Luckily while I was playing there would be blocks of hands where I’d be able to calm myself down and just play good poker, which caused my losses for the day to not be anything major. However, lesson still learned. These sessions had an awesome effect on my PT #s. My VP$IP rose about 2 points, my PFR% went up 1.5 points, and my BB/100 dropped about 1. Although I suppose this should be expected seeing that those 1300 hands make up just under 20% of my entire database.

I may play a session tomorrow morning, but if I’m not feeling good with it that will be it for the day so I’m expecting very few hands tomorrow. Not such a bad thing as I’m supposed to work 12-6 tomorrow anyways.

Bankroll Update: -$6.25 for a total of $543.09

Oct 31st

Yeah I definitely only got 100 hands in today. I managed to squeeze these in early on in the morning. After this I had to work from noon – 6 at the front desk of my res hall. Pretty boring work, but then again I am getting paid to sit at a desk and watch tv or do homework. After this I grabbed a sub from Blimpies and it was off to meet my group for my communications class. I put in a couple hours working on our presentation and then headed back to the hall.

The original plan was to play some poker now, but instead I got side tracked when I heard there was a political debate going on in the basement. Being in the minority on a college campus as a Bush supporter I felt the need to throw some useful commentary in. Side tracking a little I have to say my new enemy is a group going around calling themselves the “Get Out and Vote” campaign. This campaign is on my college campus offering free rides to city hall to go vote early and avoid the “hassles” of voting on election day. My complaint with them is that these rides are in vans plastered with Kerry/Edwards posters. Also, this campaign went all over campus attempting to recruit people to help them “get their fellow students to vote”. Yet never was there any mention that this campaign is backed by the democratic party and is a major supporter of Kerry. This whole thing seems a bit fishy to me and I’d much rather just vote on election day than deal with this type of organization. I’m not sure but this may be the same campaign gonores mentioned being on the UW Madison campus.

Back to poker, I have to say overall I felt much better about my play today. I was able to control my personal stuff much better, and these issues were not the reason I didn’t end up playing many hands today, it was simply that I was just plain busy. Also, I gotta say my two day emotional hiccup is pretty much over. I’ve calmed down a bit, although I still have to say the whole situation somewhat sucks. On the day I was +$7. Sweet!!!! Hopefully I’ll get a few more hands in tomorrow.

Bankroll Update: +$7 for a total of $550.09

P.S. I'll try to remember to include a few hands in the next one.

Schneids
11-01-2004, 02:28 AM
Reading this makes me so freaking happy I don't have a journal going on this past month.

With regards to the "get out and vote" campaign, I think you should get a ride and make it known to everyone on there you're voting Bush. Sort of like the South Park episode this past week where Stan was being haggled into voting by Kyle (who assumed Stan would vote for Kyle's dildo nomination) and then ended up voting for Turd Sandwich, anyway.

sin808
11-01-2004, 02:47 AM
[ QUOTE ]
Kyle's dildo nomination

[/ QUOTE ]

Giant douche /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Schneids
11-01-2004, 02:49 AM
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Kyle's dildo nomination

[/ QUOTE ]

Giant douche /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Whoops! It's been an exhausting weekend. Meh, wrong d-word! Thanks for correcting me /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Lawrence Ng
11-01-2004, 03:38 AM
[ QUOTE ]
I have also developed a deep hatred for girls who don’t know what they want. The type of girl who leads you on to the point where you feel really close to her and that shes the one for you, and then she suddenly acts like you don’t exist. That in a nutshell is my problem with a certain girl I had been sort of seeing, but now I don’t have a clue in the world what to think of her.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's a lot I could say here, but I suggest you visit this site AskMen (http://www.askmen.com)

Schneids advice is pretty much correct. But it's not true that poker cannot be related to women's thoughts. Like understanding your opponents and poker and how they think, you just have to understand how women think and adjust to them. It takes a bit of time, practice but any liberal man should be able to adapt.

Good luck and keep these journals up, they are a pleasure to read.

nolanfan34
11-01-2004, 01:38 PM
Good post again. I think you should go back and re-read your Oct 30 entry. I think you realize when you're not playing optimally, and would benefit from recognizing when that's the case, and stopping. Even if you're down for a bit, don't worry about it. I don't want to be reading "Rebuilding my bankroll, the sequel" here in another few months. Take advantage of the low limits you're playing to try and harness the tilt factor.

I'm not saying stop playing when you have a losing session, of course those will happen. When I get frustrated, after suffering some beats and being down a bunch of BB's for the night, I just remind myself that I've still only ever put $50 into poker - I'm still playing with house money essentially. That always makes me feel better.

As for women...Schneids is very wise. I don't know what year in school you are, but take the time now to meet a lot of different people. One of my regrets from college was not cutting ties with my high school GF earlier, even though I think we both knew it was time to end it. Basically wasted 18 mos. of my college years because I was a wimp and didn't get out of it.

Anyway, being married now, what I've decided about women, is that either you're going to click with them right away, or you won't. In the case of your friend, if you can't figure her out now, it's not like she's all of the sudden going to make sense to you. You guys probably just don't click, unfortunately.

I will say, and the happily married on this forum would probably agree, when you do find someone that clicks with you, that you don't have to waste hours "trying to figure out", it's a great thing.

Keep up the good work.

winker
11-01-2004, 03:45 PM
Holy Sh** this is a small world. It's nice to read about a familiar place, UW-LaCrosse. I graduated from there as well. I was an athlete like yourself and have many fond memories of the place. After being away for a couple years I really miss Oktobers in LaCrosse and Madison. Halloween and Oktoberfest are legendary and if you are with in a days drive from LaCrosse or Madison during those times you should go!

That is so weird, I used to live in Hutch hall. On the other hand I want to say I'm sorry to hear about your friend. Make sure you stay in touch, that'll be important.

Don't know if you care to know, but I graduated in 2002 with an Economics degree. I've worked at the Chicago Board of Trade and am now a labor economist. So UW helped me get somewhere, in my case all the way to Alaska. I found you don't need a huge school on your resume to make it, that was something I worried about when I was in school.

I've got a challenge going on too, and it's wrapping up this weekend. I'm trying to make enough playing poker to buy ski equipment and a pass for this season. Check it out under 'ski season challenge.' Look forward to playing a tourney against you guys sometime. And next time you go to the Library and there is a skinny bouncer with a big nose... tell him Wink says hi. Ditto if you see a good looking blond bartender at Johns.

admo415
11-01-2004, 05:01 PM
For your girl problem, you were probably being a little bit too much in the "want" area and you probably were giving her everything she asked for and more. Try this, make yourself a little distant from her, hang out and meet other people (you are in college right!) and if you do meet someone better remember this, always remain a challenge, especially at the beginning...girls always have guys working to get them, make the girl feel like she has to work to get you...bc, as in your situation, you probably stopped being a challenge, so she got a little bored with the relationship, if there was one to begin with, so try out this new approach, I could be totally off base here, but let me know what happens.

A

MEbenhoe
11-01-2004, 05:18 PM
[ QUOTE ]
Reading this makes me so freaking happy I don't have a journal going on this past month.


[/ QUOTE ]

Reading this reminds me I should take all relationship advice from you with a grain of salt. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif Although I guess this past weekend proves the same for all the advice I've given you.

Blarg
11-01-2004, 08:55 PM
[ QUOTE ]
I have also developed a deep hatred for girls who don’t know what they want.

[/ QUOTE ]

You'll be doing a lot of hating women in your life if you're not careful, if that's the way you look at it. Especially since they may have logic going on that you're not aware of or maybe don't want to admit to yourself.

If a girl really likes you, usually she's on your side and will let you know. I think that's one of the hardest things for men to accept -- they waste a lot of effort sometimes, on losing propositions(so to speak).

If she's less decided, you reap the rewards of that, unfortunately. She might be interested in you until someone better asks her out, or interested enough in you in front of some of her friends, but not others, and then suddenly you feel like you've failed or she doesn't know what she wants. She may know, but not be interested in telling you. Or even admitting it to herself. If it's a good match or a bad one, it usually doesn't take too long to find out unless one or both of you are in denial or don't know how to read people.

Sometimes it's best just to take the signs at face value and find someone you don't have to try so hard to figure out and to please. The ones who like you rarely put you through anything like that. That can be hard to believe if you've spent a lot of time running into ones that don't like you the way you want to be liked. I think men often try to read more mystery into women than there is. If you suspect she may not like you as much as you think or hope -- there's a good chance you're right. And it might be time to cut your losses, before the person you're hanging with because you can't seem to find any better or are too scared to look turns into the person you married because you couldn't find anything better or were too scared to look.

On another subject:

[ QUOTE ]
Also, this campaign went all over campus attempting to recruit people to help them “get their fellow students to vote”. Yet never was there any mention that this campaign is backed by the democratic party and is a major supporter of Kerry

[/ QUOTE ]

It's already well known, and as you say the van is plastered with Kerry stuff. Who doesn't know it? And why does it matter? A free ride to the polls won't change anyone's vote, and anyone is free to take it or not. And encouraging people to vote is just American. It's hard to imagine making a good case that everyone can get behind that had a slogan like: "Don't vote!" or "It's all hopeless!" or "Only sneaky [insert the name of some political party you don't like here]s vote and it's probably some kind of conspiracy!"

Nobody's stopping Bush supporters from giving people a ride to the polls, or stopping Bush supporters from encouraging everyone to vote or wearing campaign buttons or plastering their cars with goofy stickers and balloons.

However smart or foolish the campaign, voting is about the most American thing you can do. It's just bizarre to me that Americans would want to stand up behind the idea of NOT voting or would think encouraging people to vote is a bad idea, or something only partisans or people with some kind of bad intent would do.

MEbenhoe
11-01-2004, 10:25 PM
Nice to hear from a UWL grad. I currently live in your old neighbor, Wentz Hall. My lack of a fake ID will prevent me from saying hi to the bartender and bouncer for ya, sorry. Good luck with your challenge.