July 2009 Recap

Cash game net profit = $183.00
Tournament net profit = -$23.41
Total net profit = $159.59

I had recently stopped keeping track of my number of cash game hours played, my excuse being that I was multitabling among various online poker sites, not all of which are supported by PokerTracker. Actually, I guess it's already been a few months now since I stopped. Geez...

In any case, I'm realizing that it was probably just a lame excuse to be lazy, so I'm going to go back to tracking my hours played. It's actually a much more useful statistic than raw profit/loss anyway.

As much as I've been preaching the importance of staying in the moment and not worrying about past results or potential future outcomes, I do think it would be fairly valuable at this point to address a brutal reality that occurred to me while reviewing some of my previous posts. And that reality is that, from a bankroll perspective specifically, I'm pretty much exactly where I was when I first started this blog almost two and a half years ago.

The value in acknowledging this is that I believe that the primary reasons for my lack of progress all fall under a single, readily identifiable umbrella: a lack of personal discipline.

I'm writing this on the fly so this might not be a complete list, but I think it's safe to say that it will include the most significant problems that I've been unable to overcome (at least not on a consistent enough basis).

1. Ego - I've acknowledged this previously, but I don't think I realized until just now how often I still alter my play when I feel that someone else is taking command at the table. This isn't about proving how good of a player I am; it's about making money and that's it. Yet even as I type this, I have my doubts as to how fully I understand this.

2. Need for immediate gratification - This is the results-oriented side of me which I've clearly had a more difficult time suppressing than I thought. I try too hard to win pots during a cold streak; I count my chips almost constantly to see whether or not I'm up or down in the session; I play more conservatively when I'm winning and more aggressively when I'm losing; I have a hard time getting motivated to play micro-stakes; when I experience an extended break-even period, I get this idea that I should automatically try a different game or format. I can't seem to help but look for a shortcut, even though I know deep down that there isn't one.

3. Poor bankroll management - To date, my excuse for playing in higher stakes than I probably should is that my current bankroll is replenishable with the income from my 'real' job. And it is. However, it's only replenishable every 2 weeks when I get paid. And the recurring pattern seems to be that I build up to a certain level, take some stabs at higher stakes and then refuse to move back down when I take a hit. And then I have to wait until pay day to start all over again. The other problem is that even when I do win, I seem to continually pull my money out for one expense or another, basically living 'paycheck to paycheck'.

So where do I go from here now that I've identified these issues? I'm really not sure I have the answer to that. For all I know, these could be character flaws which I will never be able to overcome no matter how hard I try. That said, I have no doubt in my mind that there's only one way to find out. But even then, at what point do you decide that you simply don't have what it takes? I told my folks about a year ago that I was giving myself two years to try to make this work, and if it didn't, I'd return to a full-time work schedule and go back to school to pursue an MBA. So technically, I do still have another year to make it happen. I guess as long as I continue to focus on fixing what I know to be wrong, the answers will all become apparent in time.

System Check (monthly character assessment on a scale of 1 to 10):

Present-mindedness: 5 (-1)
Lately, I've been anything but process-oriented. I need to do a more thorough budget analysis to make sure that I only play when I can do so without worrying about whether I win or lose. The most practical solution is probably to focus primarily on playing the micro-stakes games online. I need to get better at playing the same regardless of the stakes anyway.

Awareness: 5 (no change)
In a sense, I suppose I've improved considering my realization that I've made essentially zero progress in the last 2 years. But from a pure poker perspective, I definitely haven't been using all of the information available to me when making decisions at the table.

Physical fitness: 6 (+1)
Guess I'm just fortunate that I love the beach as much as I do. Maintaining my improved dietary decisions also seems to be getting easier and easier.