Re: Where are??????
Hiya Salt,
I took the summer off from poker, after having made some major withdrawals to pay bills. I had the kids underfoot all summer, so there was really no way to concentrate on poker regardless. So it made sense to take a break, not only from playing but also from reading/posting, and focus on other things in my life (kids, writing, a few household projects, etc.).
Also, P.M. said something very apropos:
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But you know, there are times when it's better to post less and think about the game alone, without all the crowd. I'm sure it's true for everybody.
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I'd had a bit of a slide in late April and early May, before I took my break, and I realized after playing in a home game one evening that I'd twisted my poker thinking into so many wheels-within-wheels that I could no longer tell when I was playing well or poorly. Poker is, first and foremost, a game of discipline. While you can't learn discipline on a discussion forum, you can lose it, simply by engaging in so many discussions, on so many topics, that your own thoughts get cluttered and unfocused.
Sometimes you need to wipe the slate clean and rebuild your game from the ground up. For me, that meant rereading my core resources: Sklansky's The Theory of Poker, Ciaffone & Rueben's Pot-Limit and No-Limit Poker, and Brunson's Super System Poker. I don't claim these three books to be the best combination for everyone. They're simply what I needed in order to get back to the basics and rebuild my game.
Since I've come back to the game, I've been feeling a lot more comfortable at the table. I've begun learning Pot-Limit Omaha at micro-limits, and I still play NLHE ring and SNGs from time to time. Right now, I no longer feel as if I'm stumbling around in the dark, looking for some approach to the game that will work. But I have no doubt that, at some point, I'll need to take another mind-clearing break, and rebuild my game yet again.
So ... that's the long -- much longer than you wanted or needed -- answer to your question....
Cris
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