Sunday Night Musings- and congrats to Bumbo!!!!!!

Today was one of those extremely frustrating days where no matter what I did, I could not do it correctly. Bubble 5 out of 8 sngs. 2nd in three sngs. Could not close the deal. Played the Million guar on stars and managed to fold 77 in a perfect squeeze situation and would've had big stack. With 15 bbs left (instead of 50), I ran Ak as reraise right into bb with AA. Reflections on poker. Sigh. I played the 9k guar on UB and built a nice starting stack early and then struggled uphill the rest of the way. Quite aggravating.

It is also disheartening when I look at my cashier on three of three sites that I play on and see that the bankroll is in the danger zone- and I get uneasy about how low the funds are. This is partially my fault. Because Jon and I use our poker earnings for monthly bills, we force ourselves to keep limited funds online so that we ensure that everything is paid on time. However, this also requires us to deposit more often and move money around frequently. It is a system that has worked for us, but I am hoping to come up with something more useful, more resourceful. My instinct tells me that such a better money management plan will occur when we have a big cash , but logic dictates that money management will be less of an issue when Jon or I do have that big cash =) It's all a big Poker Catch 22 I tell you.

The silver lining (I always like to look objectively at the whole poker forest, not just the individual, two-outer, donkament trees), is that Jon and I live a truly charmed life. We have unlimited, unprecedented freedom. We make our own schedules, dictate the terms of our daily living, and report to absolutely no one. While this freedom is born only from being a slave to online poker, there are much worse things that we could be doing. And slavery is a slight exaggeration...I guess playing poker online is more of like a 'profitable drug of choice.' While it can be intoxicating, riveting, and exhilirating when things are great (+ making $$$$$)- when the trips are bad, they are the really bad. Those days when you feel like every play is a failure, flopping a hand is a joke, and you are getting run down by everyone and their mother, poker really sucks. But again, we look at the forest, not just that daily 'tree'. Escaping from the daily results, and looking at long term results for validation of how good we really are.

I am not only talking about your stats on pokerdb or pocketfives. I am talking about what you have accomplished in poker, how you have improved, become profittable, made that one incredible hand that was the revelation to yourself of your own abilities. That hand where you thought "damn, this is why I am so good at this game, this is what makes me a great player." Those are the things we must reflect on. Its not about one hand, or one tournament, or even one year. Its where you started and how far you have come. It is putting one foot in front of the other, and getting better with each step.

And it is difficult to persevere when things are bad. Sometimes I feel deflated and discouraged. And then I remind myself- variance is part of the job that you chose for yourself. If you cannot accept variance, then find another job. LOL. That is my wake up call. Because I do not want to do anything else. I am proud to say that poker is one of the things I am best at. I am happy and confident in my abilities. I enjoy it. It challenges me every day. I love challenges and competition and success.

So I promise myself to spend this week rebuilding my accounts, to stay optimistic and to continue growing as a player (hopefully not just metaphorically, but financially too, heehee). I also promise to stop comparing myself to others, which is one of my biggest downfalls. We all experience poker success and achieve the learning curve at a different rate and at various times, and I must accept that.

I know this has been an extremely long post, but I saved the best for last. My friend, Bumboklatt on UB (aka menyomomz on Stars), aka Chris in real life, had a phenomenal Sunday. He put up very impressive results- 16/3million (well, maybe like 3200, but same thing) in Stars Warm Up for a nice cash, and top 150 in Sunday Million. Even though it is 12:15 am, he is currently deep in 50/50 and strong in 10$ r on stars. I predict nothing but success and long term great results for Bumb, he is truly a great player with so much potential that I think will be displayed in the near future! Congrats Bumb, so proud!!!

That's all for tonight guys. I will check back soon.

Good money and peace,

Lucky C and her sidekick Ace

ps. check out picture of Lady I posted, isn't she a cutie?