The Highs, The Lows and FTOPS XIV

My streak of winning days came to an end on Sunday, but not before I'd won 11 days that I'd played in a row - my best run ever in terms of winning days in a row! I lost $700, which after being down $2,500 at one point, was an adequate result.

Amazingly I was still a little (just a little) upset about losing. A few days before I'd won $1,500 during the day in a few hours and then later on my laptop I scooped up another $800 during one episode of survivor. In the midst of the streak that $800 felt like an extra sprinkle on a very large cupcake. I was feeling very "whatever" about it at the time. Which leads me to a question: why in the world would I be upset about losing $700 when I barely cared about winning that extra $800?

I'm constantly battling my emotions, trying to stay as cold and logical about everything as possible. Sometimes it's easy. After all I know that losing sessions, days, weeks and even months are part of the deal. Even the best players lose some of the time. I've had hundreds of losing days and scores of losing weeks and everything is still fine.

During the stretches where my emotional control is at it's highest I brush off losses and bad beats like they are nothing. I almost feel amused when my aces go down, and my straights get flushed time after time. I some how manage to think "Oh, well. I'm sure this will turn around. Just stick with the plan and the cards will even out soon enough." That is how I'd like to be all the time and it is how I am the vast majority of the time.

In other instances I get upset about nothing. I curse out loud. I slap my hand against my forehead or bang my mouse on the arm of my chair. I feel tension throughout my entire body, just because I've lost a few hands or I'm down a few hundred dollars. This is not how a professional should act! I look back on my reactions and wonder why I was being such a buffoon. Swearing out loud? Really? What good is that doing?

Of course the problem is, simply that losing sucks! If you watch Tiger Woods play golf, you'll see him get pissed all the time. He'll get upset that he missed a 20 foot put on the second day of some random tournament. What sort of significance could that put have in the scheme of his life? ZERO! He's got hundred of millions of dollars, an amazimg wife and family, and a world of people who think he's awesome. He could never swing a club again and he'd still be a legend. But he wants and expects to win every tournament and make every shot. And that's how I feel too. I want those aces to hold up every time. I want every bluff to work. And damn it, I want to win every f-ing day that I get dealt a hand! And I get upset (just a little) when I don't.

I also find it more than a little annoying that I get upset. I know, by the next day or the next week I'm not going to care at all unless it was a major back breaking loss. I couldn't tell you anything about any of the losses I had in September. They are all far in the past, but I'm sure some if not all of them bothered me at the time.

Another thing I find annoying is I wish I could get more excited about winning. When I first started playing even though the money wasn't very significant in the big picture, the highs were much higher. I would have to win at least $100,000 to feel the way I did the first time I won $1,000 in a day (my biggest win leading up to that point was $350).

When I have a good win I try to think about it as much as possible and squeeze every ounce of joy I can out of it. But these days is really feels more like satisfaction that the elation that I felt when I was 21.

Anyway, I'm going to take a shot at some elation in the Full Tilt Online Poker Series XIV (FTOPS) starting tomorrow. Here is the full schedule if anyone would like to see it, but it's pretty much the same old same old FTOPS schedule.

I think I'm going to take $3,000 and play as many tournaments as I can with it (I probably won't take on any backers this time around with one or two exceptions), making sure I hit the $535 HORSE event and the $216 6-max limit event, but otherwise taking it one day at a time.

I'm not really as pumped about these FTOPS tournaments as I used to be since they have an FTOPS every 3 months, but it could still be big if I knock one out of the park.