Getting Ready for Some 10 Hour Days

On Monday I'm going to start my executive week challenge. Some people thought it would be this past week so you're not alone if you're confused about the timing. I'll be playing the part of a hard working, nut job executive and working 10 hours a day for 5 days straight. This will be 10 hours at the computer clicking away and I won't be counting any lunch or other breaks towards my total time. Check back for daily updates.

In other news, in the time between my last post and today I have been getting totally killed. It was nice in my last post to deliver some good news for a change, but since then, things have turned really sour. I've been spending my time playing $100 SNG's which is supposed to be the thing that I'm best at, but it sure doesn't seem that way. My results haven't been marginal or even bad; they've been horrific. It's not like I've been winning in the mornings and losing back my winnings plus a little more at night. Everytime I sit down to play $500 evaporates from my account. I'm trying to stay as positive as I can, but when all you do is lose, lose, lose for a week straight it feels like you're cursed.

Even worse, the last thing I feel like doing is playing poker. It's painful to lose hand after hand no matter what you do and it has a cumulative effect on your emotional well being. If you get a 4th place (the most frustrating result in a SNG that pays three spots) when you're ahead even a little or right after you get a first or a second it's no big deal. On the other hand if you've gone 8 straight tournaments without a money finish with two 4th's and three 9ths during that stretch and then you get TWO MORE 4th's when you were WAY ahead in both of the hands on which you were knocked out, it will make you scream "FUCK" at the top of your lungs. Even this kind of thing is tolerable under normal circumstances, but when it happens after things haven't been going well for a few days and there are more very similar stories from the preceding days, it makes you feel terrible. You keep thinking "when the hell is this going to stop?"

It makes me feel bad for professional athletes that get slammed in the media. Sometimes you just can't get it done. It doesn't matter how much you want to win or how hard you try. Sometimes you're just not good enough. I'm starting to worry that maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I just don't have what it takes.

Even though that's how I'm feeling right now, it's not like I'm going to quit playing. I just have to keep doing my best and hope things turn around. There's a certain security in knowing that you're going to be playing 50 hours in 5 days. Even if things go poorly for the first 25 hours (which is an eternity in online poker) there are still 25 more to be played. Hopefully I'll be able to knock out a few winning days and get myself back on track financially and emotionally.