Farewell February; March First!

February 2010 was the worst month of my poker career. Well, sort of. I lost about $5k at the tables, and made about $5k in rakeback and bonuses. So we'll call that about even. I also won several percent fewer showdowns than I usually do, and suffered a 600 BB downswing. This was the first 400 BB downswing of my Limit Holdem career. I did not tilt. But I didn't exactly play my A game the whole month, either. I gave in to a host of distractions and played half as many hands as January, at about half the level of focus. I can take responsibility for my poor effort, while running awful was largely responsible for my poor results.

On the other hand, I put out a solid effort and ran quite well in other areas of life. I produced four videos for Drag the Bar, which was a lot of work. Two of those came out in February, and the others will be released this week and the next. I also played a great show with my band, did some coaching, and wrote a fair bit. But what I feel most fortunate for, was luck that was not mine.

On February 24th, I wrote a blog about finding a purpose. My plan was to play a psychotic number of hours in an effort to raise money for Johan's cancer treatment. This may not have been the wisest plan, but I was looking forward to having a reason to play. You know, besides the money.

Also on February 24th, unbeknownst to me, the Dutch government agreed to pay for Johan's treatment; (he's Dutch). This was of course outstanding news! It was also surprising news. Why? To begin with, the treatment costs about $300k. That's a lot of money. While the Netherlands has national health care, bureaucracies will typically stall until a patient is terminal, then deny treatment because it's "too late." Fortunately, since Johan is only 39, they managed to get this one approved.

Where does this leave me? Very happy, to begin with. It's pretty easy to stomach a losing month when something so unexpected and fortunate happens to someone who really needs it. I'm still going to follow through with my four weeks of poker solitude, but I'm making some modifications. I'm optimizing for performance instead of audacity. For now, I'll take my health and my happiness, and go do some kicking and shredding.

There's a Reason They Call It a Grind

Or: Why I hate February.

For the first 8 years of my life, winter was my favorite season. I loved bundling up in monstrous layers of clothes and tumbling around in the rare snow storms in Manhattan. My building had a private plaza downstairs where the snow would collect and stay relatively pristine, compared to the yellow and grey mess on the streets and sidewalks.

Then on February 24th, 1987, my father died of cancer after being in and out of the hospital for six months. This was a major bummer. It was a bright and sunny day, featuring that cold winter light. 14 years later (to the day), I broke my foot on a sunny Saturday. Is it any wonder I prefer the dark?

This February began with promise, coming off of my best poker month and joining Drag the Bar. But I spent the second day of the month at the hospital, and most of the last two weeks distracted and scattered. I've only played about 13k hands this month, which would have been a decent pace for me last year. During these hands I've felt like I was running uphill, while falling downhill at the same time. I had no idea what my results were until yesterday. My guess was that I was down around $5k, but that was my cautiously pessimistic assumption. These have a tendency to be way off.

Anyway, I accidentally saw my account balance, so I figured I may as well check out my results. I opened up Holdem Manager to see that I was up over $4k! This was a pleasant surprise. I thought I was getting crushed... but wait... I had a weird filter on. Let me take that off... and it turns out I'm down over $5k on the month. Oh joy.

A closer look at my stats revealed that my WTSD was down a tick, and my W$SD had dropped 4 points. That means I'm making it to fewer showdowns and I'm winning less of from those showdowns. That's a recipe for losing. But to be honest with myself, I must admit that I haven't been on my A game very often this month. Things I'm doing wrong:

• Not putting in the hours on a consistent basis
• Not always properly warming up
• Not devoting my entire focus to the tables (e.g. chatting or web browsing while playing)
• Not properly reviewing my sessions

It looks more like I'm failing to do the things that contributed to a successful January than that I am actively doing something wrong. It would be easy to focus on the showdowns that I'm not winning, but I need to treat my game with more respect and get back to what was working before. It's time for a little R & R today, then back to the grind tomorrow. February sucks, but I still must make the most of it. After all, we only get 12 months.