It was just two short (long) years ago that my poker adventure began. I had made a decision that I wanted poker to be more than just a hobby and it was time to start making that happen. I was a week and a half removed from a double hernia surgery and I had to go back to work in a couple days, so I did what any sensible patient would do: I went to Vegas.
I had recently completed Annie Duke's Decide To Play Great Poker (DTPGP), she was giving a DTPGP seminar in Vegas, and that's where I was headed (thanks, Mom). Regardless of what people might think of Annie as a businesswoman (see: Epic Poker), she's a great poker teacher. Getting to listen to her expand on the topics discussed in her book and getting to run through practice hands with some accomplished pros was a learning experience I'll never forget. I finished the four day trip with a renewed, if not new-found, desire to make poker a large part of my life and a large part of my income and up a few hundred bucks.
For Christmas my mom gave me Jared Tendler's The Mental Game of Poker. This was good because my (over-inflated) confidence from the seminar had led to me losing all the money I won whilst in Vegas. This book got me re-focused on why I was making the decisions I was making and how to change them.
As 2012 began, it seemed a little serendipitous that I won $300 in a fantasy football league. Before I even had the cash in my hand, I went to my local casino and sat down at the poker table. In four hours I turned it into $900 and I was on my way. Over the next two months I experienced two losing sessions and had run my bankroll up to $2000. I was playing smart and making good decisions.
Then the wheels came off.
Losing session followed losing session and after a month my bankroll was $0. I had gotten away from what had made me a successful player. I started thinking I was SO much better than the other players at the table that I didn't need to focus on the basics.
I was wrong and I knew it.
Unfortunately, I also didn't have a bankroll. Since then I've gone to the local casinos every now and then and fooled around, but I've never been able to re-capture what I had. I've just recently let myself accept what I've known all along: it's my fault I'm not playing well. There's a decent amount of mental strength needed to sit at a poker table for hours on end and continue to play well. It's a decision that one makes for oneself as to whether or not to have that discipline. It's a decision one makes for oneself as to whether or not something in one's life is important enough to put in the effort to get better at it.
Well I'm ready. I know I've said this before and failed. Or, rather, decided not to put in that effort. I can see now that this will be a constant struggle for me, but like they say, recognizing the problem is the first step towards fixing the problem. So I'm gonna keep these declarations of poker devotion coming, because one day it'll stick.
I leave for Vegas tomorrow (today if you're not reading the the minute I post it). I'm going for a friend's birthday, not for poker. I might play some poker. I don't know. But the timing of the trip made me think about the past two years and what I haven't accomplished in regards to my poker goals.
And it's time to get back at it.
I want poker in my life. I want to be good at it. I want to be BETTER at it. I want it to matter. And matter it will.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Friday, May 31, 2013
The Resurrection of KDiggity
I just can't help it. Every year around this same time, the excitement gets the better of me. It's time for the World Series of Poker.
I had effectively given up poker. I was done with it.
If you recall, my poker game in 2012 started off with a bang, then deteriorated through the summer. I had a bit of a pseudo-resurgence in the fall when I started coaching a friend of mine, took her to watch me in a cash game, and crushed it for almost $400 in three hours. I thought I was back. I put together a package for the Colorado Poker Championship in December and.....completely whiffed. It was demoralizing. I played six or seven events and didn't cash in a single one. It wasn't that I was playing poorly, necessarily, but I obviously wasn't playing my best.
It turns out there are a lot of really good poker players in Colorado. Twice a year the Heartland Poker tour comes to town and the final table of those events are regularly filled with people who live here. It's a different setting than what you find when you play in Vegas, because there isn't the tourist flow. You end up with the same players playing all the time, studying each other and their own games, and they're really good.
So I stopped playing. I even waxed poetic to my mother about how I felt like I'd never even been all that passionate about poker. I felt like I had tricked myself into believing that this was what I wanted to do. When I encountered a few obstacles in my poker journey, I bailed.
A slight digression: I suffer from depression. I don't know what it is, officially, as I've never seen a doctor about it. All I know is that I get down - REALLY down - sometimes, and it takes over my life. I don't think it's a manic-depressive thing, because I never really get manic. But the depression is there and it's very real.
Anyway, I was feeling awful about poker. I probably hated myself more than I hated the game, and trying to convince myself that I'd faked my passion for poker was, I think, just my depressive brain trying to convince myself of something else. It was an excuse. It was a way out.
For my entire life, most things have come very easily to me. I was great at any sport I played growing up. Kindergarten through high school was a breeze. I'm outgoing and very comfortable in social settings.
I now realize that any time I faced any sort of adversity, I quit. I embellished some excuses, probably made up some others as to why I was quitting, and then I gave up.
But the World Series of Poker always brings me back. The excitement surrounding the event is palpable. This even brings together the best poker players from around the world to compete for huge prize money and gold bracelets, and even then the best don't always win. It could be Hal, a plumber from Texas. It could be Tracy a teacher from Oregon. Or, in one incarnation of the fantasy, it could be me.
That's what makes the World Series so appealing. Truly, everyone can play and anyone can win.
My passion has been re-ignited for poker. It's time to put in the work. It's time to build my bankroll. It's time to finally not run away from something because it got a little difficult. I may also have a little surprise for myself and all of you, so keep an eye out for that.
See you on the felt.
-KDiggity-
I had effectively given up poker. I was done with it.
If you recall, my poker game in 2012 started off with a bang, then deteriorated through the summer. I had a bit of a pseudo-resurgence in the fall when I started coaching a friend of mine, took her to watch me in a cash game, and crushed it for almost $400 in three hours. I thought I was back. I put together a package for the Colorado Poker Championship in December and.....completely whiffed. It was demoralizing. I played six or seven events and didn't cash in a single one. It wasn't that I was playing poorly, necessarily, but I obviously wasn't playing my best.
It turns out there are a lot of really good poker players in Colorado. Twice a year the Heartland Poker tour comes to town and the final table of those events are regularly filled with people who live here. It's a different setting than what you find when you play in Vegas, because there isn't the tourist flow. You end up with the same players playing all the time, studying each other and their own games, and they're really good.
So I stopped playing. I even waxed poetic to my mother about how I felt like I'd never even been all that passionate about poker. I felt like I had tricked myself into believing that this was what I wanted to do. When I encountered a few obstacles in my poker journey, I bailed.
A slight digression: I suffer from depression. I don't know what it is, officially, as I've never seen a doctor about it. All I know is that I get down - REALLY down - sometimes, and it takes over my life. I don't think it's a manic-depressive thing, because I never really get manic. But the depression is there and it's very real.
Anyway, I was feeling awful about poker. I probably hated myself more than I hated the game, and trying to convince myself that I'd faked my passion for poker was, I think, just my depressive brain trying to convince myself of something else. It was an excuse. It was a way out.
For my entire life, most things have come very easily to me. I was great at any sport I played growing up. Kindergarten through high school was a breeze. I'm outgoing and very comfortable in social settings.
I now realize that any time I faced any sort of adversity, I quit. I embellished some excuses, probably made up some others as to why I was quitting, and then I gave up.
But the World Series of Poker always brings me back. The excitement surrounding the event is palpable. This even brings together the best poker players from around the world to compete for huge prize money and gold bracelets, and even then the best don't always win. It could be Hal, a plumber from Texas. It could be Tracy a teacher from Oregon. Or, in one incarnation of the fantasy, it could be me.
That's what makes the World Series so appealing. Truly, everyone can play and anyone can win.
My passion has been re-ignited for poker. It's time to put in the work. It's time to build my bankroll. It's time to finally not run away from something because it got a little difficult. I may also have a little surprise for myself and all of you, so keep an eye out for that.
See you on the felt.
-KDiggity-
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