So it happened again last night, but this time there was a difference. I understand it now. I accept the flaw and now it is time for the real work. Fixing it. So what is it you ask, well it is my demon to fight. Over the course of the last few months I have learned how to wield my stack and to build a late stage mountain. I have gone into the final 30-50 in the top 5 in chips in numerous tournaments in the last several weeks and what do I have to show for it, very little. Why is that you ask. Well until this week, I think I was asking the same question. I was reviewing and hunting. Looking for the demon. Convinced it was some giant horned beast breathing smoke and belching fire. Well I found him. Yes he has horns, and he is cunning and devious, but he is also more subtle, devicive and destructive. George Carlin once joked that he wasn't concerned about the quiet ones, he was always worried about the loud ones screaming about how they are gonna destroy everyone in the room…this time George, we should have watched the quiet one. So what is the problem, here it is. As I build my stack and grow my chip position I steadily become more active. With this I see an increasing success rate of my c-bets and two-barrels through opponents who begin to float me thinking I am a one trick pony. This starts the breakdown. The disaster comes from the fact that at some point, I stop thoroughly thinking through the action of a hand and just assume that my chips can blow anyone off a hand. Turns out, no matter how big a stack you have you aren't going to toast KK or AA off their hand virtually any board. I become wreckless with AQ, AJ type hands, I start to believe in my own invincibility and don't stop to continue to play the game that got me into the position I was in. Then I lose the dreaded big pot. My stack takes the hit and puts me back well into the pack, into the place where you need to win a race to make it. Get unlucky once in that race and out I go. So close and yet so far. So what happens next. Well as with anything in life, the first step is recognizing and admiting you have a problem. Then the corrective action can begin. So here it goes.
I'm LPG, and I believe in the infalability of a big stack. I have stopped doing this for 1 day.
There it is. The first step to recovery from this leak. I have seen the problem, recognize it for what it is and now it is up to me to institute the will and fortitude to stop doing it. To play the game that has had me succeed so far and get back to doing what wins.
On a slightly seperate topic, the other thing I was marvaling at last night was the evolution and development of a players signature hand. At some point I suspect everyone develops one. Some combination of two cards where they feel absolutely invincible. The cards they had when they won something huge, the ones they had when they won their first. I'm not sure how it happnens, but it does. It looks like I found mine. Pocket 9's. I don't know why, but I feel virtually indestructible with those two cards. I think I am going to creep my wife out a little and find a big picture of a pair of Pocket 9's, get them framed al a "The Micro's" with a FTW plaque underneath and hang it next to my desk where I play. Remind myself of their unending power and basque in their brilliant glow. Oh well this is the Gman signing out. May all your flushes be Royal and your leaks be found!