Inspirations and Exhalations
Uphill in lead today.
The silver lining is that 8 years have done their job. When things go south it amazes me how quiet the inside of my head gets. It seriously feels like time is moving slower.
Still, we’ll have to see how things pan out. Job well done strictly speaking, but some things in this arena are not under your control.
Like I said: uphill in lead.
But that’s not why I’m posting. I’ve been reading everyone’s written goals for the year and I figured it was my turn. If you haven’t staked yourself to written goals I recommend it. I’m a big believer in 5 year roadmaps, and it’s eerie how on-track they can keep you. Nobel Prizes were handed out like Pez at the turn of the last century for elucidating the math and theory of the observer-created reality. I'll allow the macrocosm doesn’t see many of the microcosm’s ripples, but it is uncanny how useful written goals are.
To Wit:
Tactical/Philosophical/Psychological Goals
Improve my post-flop play through a better understanding of Game Theory and get faster at doing the math associated with drawing hands. I am working on simple tables to help me with this, but for a guy who has never had a great flair for numbers, it’s amazingly dry work.
Continue to improve my note-taking skills and improve my focus while playing. That specifically means less chatting while I am in something serious. When I play while BSing, I get too euphoricslashgiddy and in the spirit of having a good time make undisciplined plays at ill-chosen moments. I trust my gut for a living, but at the table I play too tentatively and then too loosely when I am not “dialed in” and listening closely to what my intuition is telling me.
Move my MTT game closer to lucko’s style of true TAG [EDIT: what a fucking tard I can be - gotta start rereading these bitches before posting. Meant to drop the T - because you'd have to be on better drugs than I have access to ta confuse Sucko for tight. Mah bad.] play. Easier said than done. There is a fearlessness he possesses that I would do well to emulate. To my eyes it looks like equal parts Math and Confidence. He couldn’t give a fuck whether his play makes any sense to you – in fact he prefers it looks opaque or donkish to the competition. Specifically, this lack of fear of perception is something I am positive I need to cultivate if the next leap is going to occur. I am not opening up as much as I want too at moments I am priced in because I am fearing failure (loss of the hand/tournaments) and humiliation (having to show a hand which might look foolish to some at the table). Those fears are irrational considering the goal of poker is to make correct situational decisions. As long as the decisions are sound, I shouldn’t care how it “looks”. But I do care because my ego speaks and interferes with my play. I don’t want it to anymore. Without a doubt this will be something I am stuck struggling with for the rest of my time in the game. It's my internal dialogue, and the only reason to even articulate it is the fervent hope that acknowledgement induces rapprochement. We'll see.
BTW congrats to our boy lucko on 100k in earnings in 06. Fucking stellar.
Not to be too results oriented about it, but 2006 was a good year for me by my standards. Pokerdb lists me at around 20k in winnings and about 7k in buy-ins. Lucky? You bet. But a good year nonetheless for a recreational player. I built my role almost exclusively on MTT NLHE play, which a lot of people convinced me was near impossible. Now I'm not exactly in Hoy or smokkee’s league, but I do feel like I am narrowing the chasm in skill differential that existed when I first started playing with those biotches. I’d like to double that total for 07 and hit near 40k on a 10-15k investment. Yeah, yeah I know...I will need to develop a cash game to facillate this.
Another Inner Game insight I've had is that no matter what success I enjoy – no sooner has it occurred than a voice in my head starts convincing me it was a fluke and won’t be repeated. This kind of self-doubt is a cancer to intelligent aggression and leads to prideful actions made to overcompensate for the insecurity. So another important goal will to be clear eyed about where I am and feel confident about my ability at the table. In my real life, that kind of confidence is second nature, but at the table and here on the blog I am frequently plagued by self-doubt. Analysis and self-reflection are important in development but the dark side of that is the crisis of faith in oneself it can induce. I will work harder to recognize and eliminate the Doubt leak. It directly translates into W/T (or Passive/Tight if you prefer) play.
Targets to Aim at:
Win WWdN (congrats to mah boy 55 for taking down the Mookie). WWdN was why I started playing online MTTs. I have final tabled it four times, finished top three twice, but just can’t put it down. I have a Mookie and a (K)Not. I also need to win MATH (came in second once, but no joy).
Get over my bugaboo about Stars. I am an MTT NLHE player and they have great MTTs. Plus all of you play there every week. Superstitions are for the mathematically/critical reasoning impaired. I will move 2k over there and try to make it work. FT will of course remain my girlfriend for life. By the way, I know Duggles had that problem with his FT account, and I just wanted to say that I have not had that experience. I recently made big withdrawals from my FT account and was impressed by how meticulous they were about ensuring my ID before releasing the dough. In addition, although the verification process was long, I thought their customer service throughout the process was excellent. No, I am not a paid endorser for Full Tilt. Unless you count the ridiculous amounts of money I won there this summer as a covert marketing strategy. [If it was, the muthafuckah was brilliant and it worked beautifully. Me heart FT.]
I will play the big buy-in MTTs (via satellites ideally) on a monthly basis at least. I was happy with my FTOPS ME play (honestly the only time the whole year I felt truly cold decked, and no I am not bittah in the least) and think I could do well at these if I can get in without crippling my role. The truth of it is I am working again and in the Bigs at long last. I may factor one Sunday Millions a month into my recreational budget [yeah, yeah, explaining for all exactly how that much dead money makes its way there every week].
Start reading forums regularly and join XFactor. I’ve given this a lot of thought and I don’t know if there is some magic to this site or CardRunners, but in everything else I’ve succeeded at, I have had to invest time and money on education. If I want to keep growing I better do the same here.
Win a ME seat for WSOP, and play at least two or three of the events. Unlike most of you I am a one trick pony and very happy to be so. I am waiting until I feel NLHE is burning me out to try something new, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Win two big field MTT events. My play when it is on has me feeling confident I can move steadily through the field and get to a final table. But I need that next jump to get to where I am entering those situations in a position to win as opposed just peter out in a decent payout. More midgame aggression is my guess, but this is still a work in progress.
Okay, gotta go to work. I have other specific goals I will stake myself to as the year goes on, but this is a decent start.
May we all enjoy the kind of growth we’re hoping for. Especially in Penis Size.
Laytah.
The silver lining is that 8 years have done their job. When things go south it amazes me how quiet the inside of my head gets. It seriously feels like time is moving slower.
Still, we’ll have to see how things pan out. Job well done strictly speaking, but some things in this arena are not under your control.
Like I said: uphill in lead.
But that’s not why I’m posting. I’ve been reading everyone’s written goals for the year and I figured it was my turn. If you haven’t staked yourself to written goals I recommend it. I’m a big believer in 5 year roadmaps, and it’s eerie how on-track they can keep you. Nobel Prizes were handed out like Pez at the turn of the last century for elucidating the math and theory of the observer-created reality. I'll allow the macrocosm doesn’t see many of the microcosm’s ripples, but it is uncanny how useful written goals are.
To Wit:
Tactical/Philosophical/Psychological Goals
Improve my post-flop play through a better understanding of Game Theory and get faster at doing the math associated with drawing hands. I am working on simple tables to help me with this, but for a guy who has never had a great flair for numbers, it’s amazingly dry work.
Continue to improve my note-taking skills and improve my focus while playing. That specifically means less chatting while I am in something serious. When I play while BSing, I get too euphoricslashgiddy and in the spirit of having a good time make undisciplined plays at ill-chosen moments. I trust my gut for a living, but at the table I play too tentatively and then too loosely when I am not “dialed in” and listening closely to what my intuition is telling me.
Move my MTT game closer to lucko’s style of true TAG [EDIT: what a fucking tard I can be - gotta start rereading these bitches before posting. Meant to drop the T - because you'd have to be on better drugs than I have access to ta confuse Sucko for tight. Mah bad.] play. Easier said than done. There is a fearlessness he possesses that I would do well to emulate. To my eyes it looks like equal parts Math and Confidence. He couldn’t give a fuck whether his play makes any sense to you – in fact he prefers it looks opaque or donkish to the competition. Specifically, this lack of fear of perception is something I am positive I need to cultivate if the next leap is going to occur. I am not opening up as much as I want too at moments I am priced in because I am fearing failure (loss of the hand/tournaments) and humiliation (having to show a hand which might look foolish to some at the table). Those fears are irrational considering the goal of poker is to make correct situational decisions. As long as the decisions are sound, I shouldn’t care how it “looks”. But I do care because my ego speaks and interferes with my play. I don’t want it to anymore. Without a doubt this will be something I am stuck struggling with for the rest of my time in the game. It's my internal dialogue, and the only reason to even articulate it is the fervent hope that acknowledgement induces rapprochement. We'll see.
BTW congrats to our boy lucko on 100k in earnings in 06. Fucking stellar.
Not to be too results oriented about it, but 2006 was a good year for me by my standards. Pokerdb lists me at around 20k in winnings and about 7k in buy-ins. Lucky? You bet. But a good year nonetheless for a recreational player. I built my role almost exclusively on MTT NLHE play, which a lot of people convinced me was near impossible. Now I'm not exactly in Hoy or smokkee’s league, but I do feel like I am narrowing the chasm in skill differential that existed when I first started playing with those biotches. I’d like to double that total for 07 and hit near 40k on a 10-15k investment. Yeah, yeah I know...I will need to develop a cash game to facillate this.
Another Inner Game insight I've had is that no matter what success I enjoy – no sooner has it occurred than a voice in my head starts convincing me it was a fluke and won’t be repeated. This kind of self-doubt is a cancer to intelligent aggression and leads to prideful actions made to overcompensate for the insecurity. So another important goal will to be clear eyed about where I am and feel confident about my ability at the table. In my real life, that kind of confidence is second nature, but at the table and here on the blog I am frequently plagued by self-doubt. Analysis and self-reflection are important in development but the dark side of that is the crisis of faith in oneself it can induce. I will work harder to recognize and eliminate the Doubt leak. It directly translates into W/T (or Passive/Tight if you prefer) play.
Targets to Aim at:
Win WWdN (congrats to mah boy 55 for taking down the Mookie). WWdN was why I started playing online MTTs. I have final tabled it four times, finished top three twice, but just can’t put it down. I have a Mookie and a (K)Not. I also need to win MATH (came in second once, but no joy).
Get over my bugaboo about Stars. I am an MTT NLHE player and they have great MTTs. Plus all of you play there every week. Superstitions are for the mathematically/critical reasoning impaired. I will move 2k over there and try to make it work. FT will of course remain my girlfriend for life. By the way, I know Duggles had that problem with his FT account, and I just wanted to say that I have not had that experience. I recently made big withdrawals from my FT account and was impressed by how meticulous they were about ensuring my ID before releasing the dough. In addition, although the verification process was long, I thought their customer service throughout the process was excellent. No, I am not a paid endorser for Full Tilt. Unless you count the ridiculous amounts of money I won there this summer as a covert marketing strategy. [If it was, the muthafuckah was brilliant and it worked beautifully. Me heart FT.]
I will play the big buy-in MTTs (via satellites ideally) on a monthly basis at least. I was happy with my FTOPS ME play (honestly the only time the whole year I felt truly cold decked, and no I am not bittah in the least) and think I could do well at these if I can get in without crippling my role. The truth of it is I am working again and in the Bigs at long last. I may factor one Sunday Millions a month into my recreational budget [yeah, yeah, explaining for all exactly how that much dead money makes its way there every week].
Start reading forums regularly and join XFactor. I’ve given this a lot of thought and I don’t know if there is some magic to this site or CardRunners, but in everything else I’ve succeeded at, I have had to invest time and money on education. If I want to keep growing I better do the same here.
Win a ME seat for WSOP, and play at least two or three of the events. Unlike most of you I am a one trick pony and very happy to be so. I am waiting until I feel NLHE is burning me out to try something new, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Win two big field MTT events. My play when it is on has me feeling confident I can move steadily through the field and get to a final table. But I need that next jump to get to where I am entering those situations in a position to win as opposed just peter out in a decent payout. More midgame aggression is my guess, but this is still a work in progress.
Okay, gotta go to work. I have other specific goals I will stake myself to as the year goes on, but this is a decent start.
May we all enjoy the kind of growth we’re hoping for. Especially in Penis Size.
Laytah.
posted by Iakaris aka I.A.K. at 10:10 PM
8 Comments:
gl man I'm sure all those goals are well in reach.....ps I'll teach u cash if u teach me tourney play...
Good stuff. I'm sure you'll have a great year.
Bring it on gimp!
best of luck in two thousand seven
IAK !
God damn you, Iak. Your descriptions of your shortcomings are a mirror to my own, and I could've used your sobering analysis before this weekend. The specific sections was this:
"Continue to improve my note-taking skills and improve my focus while playing. That specifically means less chatting while I am in something serious. When I play while BSing, I get too euphoricslashgiddy and in the spirit of having a good time make undisciplined plays at ill-chosen moments. I trust my gut for a living, but at the table I play too tentatively and then too loosely when I am not “dialed in” and listening closely to what my intuition is telling me."
Good luck on your goals.
IAK- thanks for the nice words, but did you just call me a true TAG???? Blech. I don't think anyone has serisouly called me a tight player in a very long time. :-)
Best of luck in 2007.
Rav: DEAL - come do an elective up in Buffalo with me in EP (hell if the house is built you can with us). Your tutorials should easily cover room and board.
Flux: tx bro, it's grow or die time.
55: heh.
smokkee: u2 - bloggah takedown 07
Jordan: yeah the chat is def fun, but no two ways I am cutting down unless it's the bloggah cash game.
Lucko: !!!
I had to go back and reread my post 'cause I thought you were fucking with me. Obviously I meant to drop the T - the whole paragraph that follows doesn't make any sense with the T, plus I have sat at a table with you once or twice and I agree T is not your thing!
LOL, too funny. Nice Edit.
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