On the Comeback Trail

May 9, 2011

This is my first blog for Poker Farm, so I thought I'd just introduce myself. I've been playing professionally for around 7 years, starting out at $.50/1 and working up to $25/50 within the first 18 months. Unfortunately I didn't see the end of the poker boom coming, and had a pretty regular routine of spending my money as quickly as I could earn it. It made for a great life for a couple of years, but unfortunately it all came crashing down with the end of the boom. I was complacent with regards my own game, and didn’t spend nearly as much time as I should have plugging my leaks and improving. I’m sure anyone who was fortunate enough to play high stakes 5 years ago would agree that you didn’t exactly need to be playing you’re A game in order to win money. As it stands now, you need to be constantly analysing and improving just to beat $1/2. I would go as far as to say it’s hard to find a game at any stakes now which is as easy as even $10/20 was 5 years ago!

For the last year I have been grinding small stakes, working constantly to get my game up to the level where I think it needs to be. I’m playing $1/2 at the moment, but hope to be playing $5/10+ and doing some coaching/mentoring by the end of this year. Although I wouldn’t particularly advise starting out a career in poker right now, I think someone coming in to the game now has some advantages over players who have been around a bit longer. When I started out, I looked at some of the older pros around at the time and could see weaknesses and bad habits, which had come about probably from a lack of good competition. Although I never thought it would happen, I became one of those old pros, riddled with leaks and bad habits myself! There is a fine line in poker between recognizing and appreciating your flaws, and doubting yourself to the point where you begin to lack confidence. Every good player needs an ego, but sometimes that can get in the way of admitting that you are losing because your game isn’t good enough. I was in that camp, and it probably meant I wasted a year going nowhere in the game. But I have pretty much taken my ego apart over the last year, even short-stacking games for a while just to improve certain aspects of my play... a guaranteed ego-killer!

However, I feel like I’m playing the best I ever have right now and look forward to playing everyday. I’m waiting for my first real test, a period of run-bad. However, I hope that I’ve strengthened my mentality to the point that I will barely notice it arrive.

Till next time........