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