Shock the System

Save for Later

2011 has been a great year for me.  I've regularly been chopping out nice wins for myself and my backer for the entire year. However, long upswings can also lead to what I think can be an unhealthy feeling of comfort. When you are winning, it's easy to stop focusing on improving your game. It does not mean you are playing poorly, but you might be making more mistakes than you should be, which you are just not noticing because at the end of the day, you are winning.

Today I was discussing a recently played hand with RonFezBuddy. I had remembered playing the hand poorly, but really did not realize just HOW poorly until I pulled up the Hand History to go over it with RFB. It was deep in the Fifty Fifty on Full Tilt Poker, so not really the spot you want to be making mistakes. While it sucks to have played the hand that bad (it's really, really bad) I do think it was the shock to the system I needed to get me back on track. I feel focused again. I looked over several more hands today and found a few more mistakes. And I am now recommited to putting in the work off the table to patch up some of these holes.  You just can't make big mistakes like that deep in tournaments. One hand can mean the difference between winning $300 or winning $10,000.

So I'm spending the rest of today watching some videos (specifically the latest bigdog live sweats) and looking over some more hand histories to get ready for a big Sunday session tomorrow.

So what was the hand that I played so bad? Well, you are going to have to wait and find out. As luck would have it, I was recording for a Stick It To The Man series, and I don't want to ruin the fun for you, or for the pros who are going to have a grand time when they see this hand.  So stay tuned for that, and please…go easy on me.