No Money No Honey

Only hours away from leaving Brussels.
The reasons are unclear.

(Fish Fact) It is how this cold and lonely winter ends.

(Brag) On the flip of a coin I booked a flight to Phnom Penh.

(Beat) A few days later my marriage was over.

(Variance) Lost my only real connection with Cambodia. No more family to visit. No one waiting for me.

(Fish Fact) But I never cancelled the ticket. Dreaming about a holiday in the sun is hard to give up.

(Breathing In)
Now I’m shit scared.
Like a vagabond, alone on the road again.
A lousy sequel to a story that’s already been told...
One last trip to Cambodia.
No fucking clue what to do when I get there.
Got no idea what is I'm searching for.
I don't really care all that much about money or love anymore.
I’m not looking for answers.
I don’t even know what the questions are.

(Breathing Out)
Might as well spent some time in the sun.
Leave the past out into the night.
Moving on and moving up.
Maybe I’ll spend my poker winnings on a posh seaside resort to read books and grind online poker. Maybe I’ll try to get lost in Phnom Penh nightlife or maybe I’ll make that final trip up river after all...

(Fish Fact) At best, a recipe for disaster. At worst, my best decision ever.

Fuck it. Final round.
It's time to go.

Variance Surfin'

So how good at poker do you think you really are?

The cool dudes over at Evplusplus.com came up with a variance simulator.

Let's say you're crushing no limit cash games at 3 big blinds/100 hands over 100K hands.

Here are 100 different possibilities how your actual profit graph could turn out:

So, there's one lucky guy that turns +$13K profit at $0.50/$1 no limit hold'em 

(snorting coke off of a model's ass and negotiating sponsorship deals) 

while an equally skilled dude (kicked out by his wife because of his gambling problem and now contemplating suicide) could have lost -$10K over the same sample size...

It's a very, very brutal game.

Next time you feel like the ultimate poker genius or like the dirtiest degenerate gambler, chances are that you're only surfing the waves of variance...

Sunday Recovery

Yesterday was a disaster..
Just like I couldn't win a single hand.

Variance can be brutal.
That's easy enough to understand.
Shit happens; especially if you're willing to wager mood-affecting amounts of money on the turn of a few cards... Staying emotionally unaffected while rapidly sliding downhill on the profit-graph, that's the hard part.
To make matters worse; I had promised to attend a party somewhere deep in the Flemish country side. Nothing like looking for directions on a dark, rainy night while still on tilt.
Hey, at least, it got me out of the house and mixing with the party people.

Today's an all new and improved day.

After a good, long run I reviewed my game extensively (rock solid, as expected...) and spend a lot of time watching PokerVT-videos. No Rush Poker just yet. I made it to the highest level of the Iron Man Challenge this month. There's no real need to put in any more volume.

Just a couple of big multi-table tournaments tonight to finish of the weekend in style...

Laziness & Deception

After a few tough weeks at work I found myself at the good side of variance this morning.

For completely random reasons I got my old job back.
Finally away from this new environment where I have suffered for the last 3 weeks!

This old job I have done for more years than I wish to remember.
But a least I had the time do develop a serious edge here.
This is, by far, my greatest professional achievement ever.

I am a master in the fine arts of laziness and deception.

Spending as little time on performing professional tasks as possible
while keeping my superiors happy with a steady flow of rock-solid stats and data about my performance...
That's what being an employee is all about!

It's Monday afternoon and I can't quite decide if I am going to watch the latest episode of The Simpsons or some training videos on PokerVT...

If all Mondays could just be like this,
life would be almost bearable...