I took a day off from poker today and rested up. Took a pal to the airport earlier to see him safely out for the country complete with his winnings, and a bit of shopping for the wife and kids back home. Nobody I know takes trips out here for as long a period as I do, they all have real lives to get back to, families, jobs and various other commitments. I always feel like there's little or nothing left for me in the UK to hang around for or go back to, save my family, so it never pains me too much to leave it like I do and stay here for a pretty long time. Maybe one day that'll all change, but for the last few years that's mostly been the way it is.
The poker's been a bit frustrating for the last week or 10 days or so. I know I'm easily experienced enough to know and admit to myself if I'm playing badly, and I feel I've been pretty competent in the events I've played, but have either been a little unlucky or have just ran out of steam when it's been time to close out a day one, or to make the money on a day two. Such is life, it happens, but I'm feeling that a day or two off and a fresh onslaught might be a better approach for the upcoming assault on the next batch of events.
I'd also like to get a bit more into my fitness again. In terms of the grand scale of the poker world, however bad I might ever feel about myself, mostly whenever I set foot into a poker room and look around I suddenly think "you know what? Things aren't actually that bad...I'm practically an athlete and a male model". Tongue in cheek perhaps, but the bold truth is that most players, talented or not, spend precious little effort on their appearance or their fitness. The appearance side of it is almost forgivable in the WSOP. The daily heat is pretty intense outside, and hoodies and T-shirts are the standard uniform as people trudge from casino to casino in search of fortune. The fitness aspect however is pretty shocking. Some players have literally no desire at all to even stay slightly in shape. Maybe it goes with the sometimes lazy "be your own boss" mindset, where if you don't have to do it, then why would you?
I'm probably in the top 50-60% when it comes to physical fitness, compared to the rest of the herd. I swim, run, cycle a fair bit, go hiking. I always try to take stairs instead when there's an escalator, and I don't eat deep fried crap every single day. Having said that, I caught my reflection yesterday getting ready for bed, and could see myself looking decidedly Mr Bump-esque.So I'm going to crack back into the exercise regime a bit with a view to redressing the balance and getting my waistline back to some semblance of normality.
I set up the summer schedule with a view that I'll play good value guarantee tournaments, often multiple day events, and if I feel like the value is there then I'll fire another bullet if needed. Obviously tournaments can be very cruel, and more often than not you find yourself out having done little wrong or sometimes being in great shape when the money went in. That's just...tournaments. I'd never or rarely take a re entry into the same flight of a tournament, as I feel you're at a big disadvantage coming in late with less chips and already a bigger hurdle to overcome, I'd just rather begin on the next flight instead for a level playing field.
Having said that, for the remainder of the trip I'm most likely going to adopt my older strategy of entering the multiple flights on the last or second to last day, and firing only the one shell. Never say never, because of course I might decide a re-entry is warranted in certain circumstances, but I'd rather just try to accumulate chips and play well and make a day two with the one shot, and if it doesn't happen then just go onto the next event altogether. If you start burning up multiple entries repeatedly then you may as well have just entered a $1200 event, and $800 event, and so forth. The value in some of the smaller events is that often some of the field are just not very good at poker, and they make too many mistakes over the course of the tournament, which is where the better players' edge comes into play in exploiting this.
There's still plenty to play, and I don't think anyone reading the event updates would think for a minute that the buy-in money is being dusted off carelessly. I know at some point a quick early exit from an event will pop up, set over set, straight vs flush etc, and when it does then trust me the update for that day will be a pretty short one. It's bound to happen sometime. For now I'll just keep grinding on and doing the best I can. It's pretty much all anyone who approaches the game professionally can do.
Next event- Golden Nugget $350 one dayer on the 19th June.