Turning a New Leaf

[The Yugoslavian]

I no longer will be a slave to spreadsheets. I am throwing out the myriad I have compiled in my short poker career. They are now all dead to me.

Unlike Irie, I never played poker without ROI, ITM, OOTM, placement breakdown, time of day breakdown, etc. I do not know what it feels like to be either just running good making me happy, or running bad making me sad.

I enjoy playing the game. I must, or else I would have quit by now several times. Somehow, I enjoy poker immensely more playing the right way.

I am generally happy and upbeat when I play.

Unfortunately I am generally sad and distraught when I reflect on results and/or am entering them in – at best I am indifferent.

Therein lies the crux of my problem. I have been abusing stats past the point of addiction – in fact, if stats were actual drugs I was taking, by this time I would have no friends, no money, no family willing to talk to me and nothing else to live for.

I’m great at sucking all significance out of my stats when they are good. I am good at even ignoring misleading implications of my stats when they are bad. But, deep down inside, I feel that I need something from looking at my stats , that I deserve some sort of relief and/or fulfillment from them, that they are the guide, which will allow me to become a ‘better’ and thus ‘happier’ poker player.

I have come to realize that I am simply wrong. Stats are stats. They do not judge, they do not communicate, and they certainly don’t owe me anything (no, not even a bigger e-phallus, Irie, [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] ).

I always knew there was simple wisdom that only Frozen could dispense in his unique manner. He was much closer to the correct approach for keeping stats than any one of us probably was willing to believe:

[ QUOTE ]

I don't keep any records either, I just get high and play.


[/ QUOTE ]

-- Frozen

I am ready to let the game wash over me like a cooling waterfall under the blazing sun.

I am ready to look at HHs detached from their statistical context.

I am ready to destroy my spreadsheets...

Yugoslav

[J-Lo]

Amen!!! I've come to the conclusion that i'm gona get all my HH emailed to me, and then put them it PT, but never look at the bottom line... no more spread sheets... And when i do need to look at them, once/month, i'm going to compare them to Poker prophecy.

[LeVoodoo]

I deleted the ROI and ITM result fields from Aleo's spreadsheet a few days ago (after a rough week). I feel so much better.

[Voltron87]

The day I was able to not think about the game from a cash value point of view, from just playing the game and doing the right thing, was somewhat of an epiphany. I just booted up Party, opened 4 tables, played, listened to music, opened 4 tables when that set was done, and did so for about 5 hours one night. I didn't check the cashier box once, didn't count my wins and losses, none of that. I ended up 15 dollars. I played pretty much as good as I possibly can, a bunch of bad beats on the bubble with big stacks, but it didn't matter. I just ran through and played poker for the sake of playing good SNG poker.

This was also the time I began to be able to truly understand when I was running bad and when I was running good. Before this, I would say "I'm playing well, but I'm only up 15 dollars, yarrrrgh". Or I would say "I'm running so bad I should be up 500, yarrrrgh" when I was actually on tilt.

It takes a special kind of confidence to know you are doing the right thing and playing well, not worring about being down or up, just letting it flow. And if you obsess over stats every day it will get in the way.

[Irieguy]

[ QUOTE ]
Derek Smalls: We're lucky.
David St. Hubbins: Yeah.
Derek Smalls: I mean, people should be envying us, you know.
David St. Hubbins: I envy us.
Derek Smalls: Yeah.
David St. Hubbins: I do.
Derek Smalls: Me too

[/ QUOTE ]

Words to live by.

Irieguy

[Slim Pickens]

If you have the discipline to play poker, you should have the discipline to keep stats. If they get you down, don't look at them, but some day you will want them, if for no other reason, to prove to all those half-brained college students who saw the WSOP on TV and then won $50 playing like a moron at the local cardroom that you, you, are the true poker-pimp and they're all just a bunch of wannabe prankster b1tches. This is all loser-talk. Quit quitting, you big baby.

Slim

[SuitedSixes]

[ QUOTE ]
If you have the discipline to play poker, you should have the discipline to keep stats. If they get you down, don't look at them, but some day you will want them, if for no other reason, to prove to all those half-brained college students who saw the WSOP on TV and then won $50 playing like a moron at the local cardroom that you, you, are the true poker-pimp and they're all just a bunch of wannabe prankster b1tches. This is all loser-talk. Quit quitting, you big baby.

Slim

[/ QUOTE ]

F-U (in the nicest way possible). That is spoken like a guy who just spent a ton of time updating a spreadsheet to keep track of this kind of stuff. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[spentrent]

[ QUOTE ]
This was also the time I began to be able to truly understand when I was running bad and when I was running good. Before this, I would say "I'm playing well, but I'm only up 15 dollars, yarrrrgh". Or I would say "I'm running so bad I should be up 500, yarrrrgh" when I was actually on tilt.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you say "shiver me timbers" when you're running hot?

[Voltron87]

LOL

I actually have said that once.

[spentrent]

I yell "SUCKA!" a lot when I'm running hot. But I dig your pirate theme more than my Shaft theme. YARRRRRGH!

You must stay at TI in Vegas as well. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]