A Gambler's Fallacy

Let’s get right to the meat and potatoes, I’m writing again flat out because I see a direct correlation between dumping my brain onto paper and achieving the goals I set for myself. I took a break from writing when donkeyfishpoker was absorbed by Deepstack University.  Donkeyfish was a fairly private community I was comfortable with and rarely, if ever, did I play with anyone who had read any of my entries. However, Deepstack is a business that seems to only be growing with the introduction of their tournament tour in ’12, and will likely draw more attention of those serious about improving their game at higher stake levels. My writing is purely self serving and never do I intend to draw a road map for my peers to find a way to exploit me. That being said if you are reading this you are likely a good friend or a non poker player. Hopefully you take something away from these scattered thoughts; if not, I’m sorry, I’m not sorry.

Sticking to the self improvement theme, today is day 1 of what I will refer to as the “Things I want to achieve before 30” challenge:

First up is a gentleman’s bet I have with my roommate Dan in which we are going to hit it hard til Thanksgiving, % of body fat lost will be the deciding factor. That’s merely the mid way point though, my 30th birthday, Jan 29th will be the final weigh in and measurement. The stakes are a handful of house chores, including cleaning up dog shit for a month, as well as a few bucks. We agreed to keep it friendly in hopes of actually pushing one another for once. We both weighed in at 205 lbs with my body fat being 15.75% and his 19%. I’m going to set the bar high for myself hoping to achieve 10.5% by Thanksgiving and 8% or less by my birthday.  It’s going to take a level of dedication I’m not sure I still possess to get back to my college playing shape. However, with age comes wisdom so hopefully a more precise diet and workout regiment will lead to similar results. Stay tuned for weekly installments of my shin splints, sprains, breaks, and bruised ego.

On deck we have career improvements, but first let me go into a little detail as to what happens when you neglect your profession. I was quietly on pace to meet my yearly goal through the end of the world series, then came the downswing. I lost a chunk in bad games the following month, then I just decided to wait it out and enjoy the summer. I didn’t have nearly enough fun, making the ensuing downswing even tougher to swallow. All toll between backing and my current downswing I have the yearly win rate of a moderate 2/5 grinder. The worst aspect of career missteps is the reflection of the mistake in my net worth, consequently the restrictions that follow due to bankroll adjustments. In my case I lost over a third of my net worth, forcing me to scale back one horse to strictly cash while cutting the other. It pains me to give away equity and to see a friend in a bad spot, but mistakes were made by all parties involved and I certainly let them compound.

From a business perspective disaster was eminent. I was playing the biggest stakes at any given time along with a moderate tournament schedule. Throw in expenses and I was in a comfortable, at best, situation for myself. However, I arrogantly chose to over extended myself. Fine, no gamble no future. Problem with backing is you can only control one real variable: amount invested. Unfortunately the concept of getting a horse to the long term clouds judgment, leading to biting off more than I could chew. Online going down really crushed things as well forcing our hand at more expensive live buyins. Ultimately it came down to taking the reigns of an opportunity rather than wishing in one hand and shitting in the other, needless to say my hand stinks.

Onward and upward. Adjustments need to be made. I likely won’t drop stakes in cash as the 10-20-40 is rarely running these days, which I can easily game select when it goes. I do plan on spending some hours at 5/10 working on some new concepts and patching up a few areas I feel I’ve neglected. I will scale back my tournament buyins indefinitely, which I’m not exactly shedding a tear over. I don’t foresee me playing any big buy in events until Jan. at the earliest. I expect to be in a position to play PCA along with LAPC. I have very lofty expectations of myself over the ensuing months leading up to PCA and my birthday. There are 105 available days to play, I expect to play 75 of them. My goal is to triple my net worth in that allotted time, which barring a big tourney score, would be an upswing of epic proportion. Both of these would be career achievements for myself and the tip of the iceberg. I lack those bullet point achievements that separate the elite and it’s a long time coming for me bolster my resume.

The arbitrary deadline of my 30th birthday only serves the purpose of a wake up call. I recognize the opportunities that youth, freedom and intelligence provide, yet ignore how limited life can become when squandering any/or all of the above. In kissing my 20’s goodbye I hope to tread lightly, paying a little more attention to the here and now. And currently I want to be accomplished. I have a lot to prove to myself and want to raise the bar to an unreachable level. If I fail, great so long as I don’t walk away with a gap between my effort and capabilities.