There I am...looking like I'm loving life. This was actually just before I busted 10th in the $600, so I guess I must have known something.
Thus far on the trip, I've played 9 events, spent around $6500, and have cashed for almost 3K. Not a huge sample size of course, but it's pretty much all been deep runs and spinning out late, with one big pot as a favourite for all the marbles and a shot at a $40K payday. I can't grumble. Well, I can, but I'd be wrong in doing so.
I decided to miss the Venetian $250 event with 3 x day ones in favour of the WSOP circuit main event tomorrow, which has a $1M guarantee. The buy in is chunkier, but also so is the potential payday if we can close it out, and we're not here to win small, so the smart choice is to rest up a bit, play that fresh, and try for a deep run. There are also some good value Venetian events to play in the upcoming week, so there's no pressure to simply play what is on offer each day.
I've taken a bit of time here to see some good friends I don't get to spend enough time with normally, eat (and cook) nice food, play golf, decompress, and generally get back more to being my old self again. Playing poker for large, or even vast sums of money has never been something I've considered particularly stressful. It simply needs to be approached professionally, despite my image of being a bit wild and wacky at the table in tournaments. The hours, stress, difficult commuting lower earnings and general pressure of working for somebody else full-time for a while, are something I'm glad to once again be free of, despite meeting some great people and learning a lot along the way in the last two years of employment. Yes, it's daunting to be back on a more uncertain path in life, but also refreshing to be in charge of my own destiny once again. Either way, I guess I'm saying it's good to be here, and I'm feeling relaxed and focused. No one ever turned round on their deathbed and said "I wish I'd worked longer hours and commuted more".
In general I have a small and very supportive group of friends, investors and general well-wishers both in poker and in life, which is always a help and by design the way I want it. I've largely managed to cut myself off from toxic influences as much as one ever can, and although the odd one slips under the radar now and then, the fact they need to vent or be poisonous either online or in person (about anything) says a lot more about them than it does about me. The way you treat others speaks volumes about who you really are. I guess older age just mellows you a bit. I'm normally more than happy to enter into a battle of wits, because luckily most people turn up unarmed, but nowadays I'm a lot better at just letting it wash over me and deciding it's not worth the hassle. It's not like any of us are getting out of here alive in the end anyway, and I'm more about being content and at peace now, than in explaining to someone how awful their words or actions look, or show them up to be, One thing that turning on the internet nowadays glaringly displays on politics, social media, or just about any subject, is that people don't actually need to be right in order to rant or display their viewpoint, they just need access to a keyboard and to be able to spout, however wrong they clearly are to any rational person. In a hundred years none of it will matter, so leave them to it.
PH $1675 tomorrow at noon.
Thus far on the trip, I've played 9 events, spent around $6500, and have cashed for almost 3K. Not a huge sample size of course, but it's pretty much all been deep runs and spinning out late, with one big pot as a favourite for all the marbles and a shot at a $40K payday. I can't grumble. Well, I can, but I'd be wrong in doing so.
I decided to miss the Venetian $250 event with 3 x day ones in favour of the WSOP circuit main event tomorrow, which has a $1M guarantee. The buy in is chunkier, but also so is the potential payday if we can close it out, and we're not here to win small, so the smart choice is to rest up a bit, play that fresh, and try for a deep run. There are also some good value Venetian events to play in the upcoming week, so there's no pressure to simply play what is on offer each day.
I've taken a bit of time here to see some good friends I don't get to spend enough time with normally, eat (and cook) nice food, play golf, decompress, and generally get back more to being my old self again. Playing poker for large, or even vast sums of money has never been something I've considered particularly stressful. It simply needs to be approached professionally, despite my image of being a bit wild and wacky at the table in tournaments. The hours, stress, difficult commuting lower earnings and general pressure of working for somebody else full-time for a while, are something I'm glad to once again be free of, despite meeting some great people and learning a lot along the way in the last two years of employment. Yes, it's daunting to be back on a more uncertain path in life, but also refreshing to be in charge of my own destiny once again. Either way, I guess I'm saying it's good to be here, and I'm feeling relaxed and focused. No one ever turned round on their deathbed and said "I wish I'd worked longer hours and commuted more".
In general I have a small and very supportive group of friends, investors and general well-wishers both in poker and in life, which is always a help and by design the way I want it. I've largely managed to cut myself off from toxic influences as much as one ever can, and although the odd one slips under the radar now and then, the fact they need to vent or be poisonous either online or in person (about anything) says a lot more about them than it does about me. The way you treat others speaks volumes about who you really are. I guess older age just mellows you a bit. I'm normally more than happy to enter into a battle of wits, because luckily most people turn up unarmed, but nowadays I'm a lot better at just letting it wash over me and deciding it's not worth the hassle. It's not like any of us are getting out of here alive in the end anyway, and I'm more about being content and at peace now, than in explaining to someone how awful their words or actions look, or show them up to be, One thing that turning on the internet nowadays glaringly displays on politics, social media, or just about any subject, is that people don't actually need to be right in order to rant or display their viewpoint, they just need access to a keyboard and to be able to spout, however wrong they clearly are to any rational person. In a hundred years none of it will matter, so leave them to it.
PH $1675 tomorrow at noon.
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