Greetings poker goons, welcome to the first blog of an aspiring 6max grinder. I certainly hope that this blog never gets read since no one should be subjected to the creative writing of an engineer, but in case you have made it this far don't say you weren't warned.

My name is Will and I'm a 19 year old Applied Physics student at Queen's University in Canada. I started playing about 18 months ago after playing some home games and stumbling upon 2+2 through the SomethingAwful forums. Privy to this wealth of knowledge I threw $50 online expecting to take on the world despite having read 3 2+2 threads and having understood none of them. Needless to say I busted my first fifty quick snap, read more, threw on $200 and haven't looked back since. My roll has bounced around from Fortune to Full Tilt to Party where I spend the vast majority of my time nowadays. I've played every stake from NL10 to NL200 or 400 where I now reside save for fun fish chasing ventures up to NL2k (we don't talk about that day). I'm confident that I'm one of the best NL200 players on Party right now (fastest special olympian) with a nice 6+BB/100 winrate over my last 70k hands there.

I'll get this out of the way right now: This post is here for me to vent. The last 3 months have been horse****. I've been working real hard to push through to NL400 since the New Year and have been more or less throat raped by the variance train. I'm writing this today because my NL400 downswing hit 30 buyins a few hours ago, along with a nice little 10BI downer at NL200 to boot. Nothing at 1/2 phases me anymore because I've played and beaten the limit for long enough to not flinch at variance, plus I'm constantly reassured by everyone's horrific play. At 2/4 though, the confidence in my game is completely shot. 2+2er Lefort wrote an excellent blog post about tilt and confidence and described a 'mental fog' that decends onto you when emotion starts clouding your judgement. At lower stakes the fog starts to set in when I'm about 5 or 6 particularily heinous buyins down, and it's no problem as I easily quit and come back the next day. At 2/4, the fog has been setting in sooner and sooner, and now as soon as I lose my first medium sized pot I'm not playing my A game. I'm embarrased at how mentally feeble I've become.

When people talk downswings, the poker community usually dispenses a few suggestions and tips for recovery.

Take a break
I went on holiday in Fernie BC for two weeks in the middle of February to do some skiing. Went on poker money too which was nice because I've never really done anything extravagant out of my roll before.


Move Down
After I dropped my first 20 BI at NL400 I moved back down to NL200 and murdered. Played 20k hands and won just shy of 30 BI, as well as opening up my game a bit getting my W$WSF up to 47 like all the cool kids on 2+2

Keep working on your game
I post heaps of strat on 2+2 and just released a video that got really solid reviews. I've been working with a killer coach on and off since November who's said I'm 'overqualified' for NL200 and as good if not better than his other students who beat NL400. There's obviously still room for improvement in my game though so I'm just going to keep at it.

Try another game
This is one I haven't tried yet. SNGs have absolutely zero appeal to me, and if I tilt this bad playing 6max cash there's a very real possibility I might reach through the computer screen and strangle my opponents if I play tournaments. I should really look into moving a chunk of my roll to Stars or FTP to play some HU cash, I think it would be a nice change.

Work on something other than poker
The last 3 months have seen me really start climbing more than recreationally and I've been really excited with where it's going. Yesterday at the gym I flashed a 10c which I'm thrilled about given that I started climbing like 5 months ago. I feel strong and I'm really excited to get out once the snow melts and start to learn more.


So that's that. I'm not really sure where to head from here but just keep on trying, or maybe just play NL200 forever, or maybe just stop. Despite my success I'm not sure that poker has benifited my life on the whole. How much is the money worth? What's the price of me being able to go out and have a beer with my friends without being pissed over a bad day at the tables? Do I even like the game any more? I think these are all questions poker players don't ask themselves frequently enough.

Hopefully my next blog won't be such a downer and will instead detail the $$MAD DOLLERZ$$ I'm raking in at MSNL!

Cheers,
Xanta