With my chosen tournament not working out, I don’t feel like I’m participating in the series enough. Yet that is the issue for a cash-only player low on cash. Still, I do have other duties.
First, back to Sergio’s for the private game and his birthday party. When you’re being charged a heavy rake, do you still bring a gift? Somehow, I doubt Miss Manners has any recommendations on this particular situation. On the way there, I just can’t imagine not bringing a bottle and find some Prosecco. Don’t and don’t forget to, as she summarized all civilized behavior.
I’ve been wrestling with my motivation to play. This game with its band of usuals makes things easier on me, despite the rake and straddle impediment. The issue with the flood of festival players is the variance; familiarity reduces variance. So, it seems fair that I play well and run well, making a hero call in a challenging spot, bluffing successfully, and maybe more important, given all my spew of 2026, not bluffing selectively.
I’d taken several days off from my income-generating duties to reflect and get to the bottom of things. My dreams have been heavy, yet the days are not any different. I reflect on how I arrived here, now seeing and understanding patterns that go back decades, even to childhood. As for poker and these overwrought, emotional months of being consistently wrong, it seems clearer than ever that I did not really want to win. It is hard to explain but I see it now as a kind of psychic reaction to certain life events. Of course, there has been runbad, but I have made so many strange plays that now look like some battle between confusion and frustration and apathy. When we are in control, we know why we are doing things; when we are spiraling, our subconscious has taken command, like an uninhibited and drunk friend.
This is why just one good, methodical, thoughtful decision matters so much to me. I may be still in the downswing, but this is the way out.
They’ve been talking about the Poker Hall of Fame, which for so long, has really been a sort of dinner club for Vegas’ biggest live players. I’ve never felt further from the poker community, whatever that is. Even my dreams aren’t “the poker dream.” I am here for entirely different purposes. This is a superpower but also a weakness. I play only enough to live and work on my real dreams. After this recent bout with my conscience, I see the most hopeful of these dreams have been an illusion for some time.
The downswing does not end. I return to public games and immediately run kings into a set in a favorable, low spr-spot, of course created by a straddler, the hidden terrorists of logical strategy. All I really lose is one cbet, as I am no fool, but it’s a big pot and enough to ruin the session given nothing else goes my way. I take one loose opening and am immediately punished by the players and the deck. I had had a strong but passing feeling not to play, one which I gut-checked. However, I wanted those hours and ignored the feeling. This sort of thing is my last remaining superstition or a real clue as to how I am doing. Usually, I will listen to my body.
An old poker bro has returned out of the mist. He’s a friendly sort, one going back to the RCP days. His son is on the spectrum and his wife has cancer. It’s a heavy load, but he handles it all so well. We have a meal downtown, the area he has always been partial to. A junior server doesn’t really speak English so she has me write down a cocktail order on a pad of paper. Our second server is worn; he somehow wears shorts while working, revealing varicose veins on pale, decrepit legs. Everyone has burdens, everyone is aging, everyone has things they must do.
-1711
