4/16/09: My biggest downswing ever

Last year I was a lot crazier at the tables than I am presently. I guess it was because I was still in school, and didn't depend on the money, but I definitely did some stuff that I (hope I) would never do now, and probably should not have done then (although I did learn from each shot, so I guess it wasn't the worst thing in the world). Some of these things included, but are not limited to:

-3 tabling the 5k cash games HU against Thorladen, losing ~18k on the session
-2-4 table the 5k cash games HU against Takechip, losing ~28k on the session
-Taking a shot at 25/50 full ring when one fish was sitting in, playing a pot 3 stacks (15k) deep with molewsi, making a small river bet with the intention of snapping off his bluff, then pussing out and folding (he told me recently that he had turned QQ into a bluff in the hand :[ ). I lost 15k that session.

Basically, my cash game adventures last year consisted of making a ton at 3/6 and 5/10, then taking shots at 25/50 and failing horribly most of the time. Don't get me wrong, I feel that overall I ran fairly bad over the smallish sample size that I have, however, for the most part I was being badly outplayed.

Every time I played and lost one of these sessions, I felt awful. I have never shown many outward reactions to poker other than little rants or mumbling to myself (I know other player sometimes break keyboard/mice), but each session was followed up by a couple nights where it was particularly difficult to sleep, and empty promises to myself that I would never play outside my comfort zone again.

All of these losses hurt, because I lost a sizable portion of my bankroll. However, I have never taken a hit like I did yesterday, on April 15th.

Yesterday I sent off my tax sheets, forms, and vouchers. Along with them went checks for a little under $60k. Think about that. For almost anyone, that is a TON of money. For me, that is a TON of money. For the government, that is a couple skylight windows in the new office. Is it really vital that the government take ~40% of our money, for programs that we don't agree upon, for things that we don't need, for people that we don't like?

Right now our economy is in a serious downswing, and we seem to be making moves that are counterproductive to goals. You want to stimulate the economy? Ship me back my 60k and let me use it for a down payment on my first piece of property. It seems better than bailing out a set of car companies that build products which preform MUCH WORSE than their competition overseas. Instead of trying to breath life into a doomed sector, why not try to stimulate our bruised real estate economy by returning a large % of the taxpayer's money, then passing bills which encourage using that money for real estate investments. I mean, its only the best time in the last 20 or so years to buy property, its not like people need all that much convincing in the first place. And if the government passed a bill, for instance, that reduced taxes on property bought in between 2009 and 2011, that would certianly be the extra push I would need to get out there and start buying. It couldn't hurt the banks either, responsible investors actually looking for loans once again.

I'll probably update this post later with more thoughts on this later, but for now I need to grind so that I can get my bank account back to where it was pre-april 15th.


Anyways, in the poker world, not a lot has gone on for me since I was busy with taxes (or as busy as one can be when they have an accountant do most of the work). But I did manage a few tiny sessions, along with one fair sized one.

The count:

Hands played: 7679
Amount won/lost: +$2551
Time played: ~9.5 hours


The last few days have effectively wiped out the downswing that I went on the last day of scoops. Hopefully this upcoming week I will be able to put in real volume (30-40k hands) and turn April into a very profitable month.