Jebus, Why Art Thou Taunting Me?

I make a real effort to approach work with a better attitude this week and within 15 minutes I've been reduced to gasket-poppin', throw-feces-at-the-zookeep simian rage. No bueno. Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean...

My fickle mistress poker did much the same yesterday, wiping out most of the gains of the last week in a few fell swoops. Some days I feel like I have a good handle on the game (and myself) and all it takes are a few bad rivers to send me flying into the foul pit of despair.

I'm definitely struggling with that on the 15/30 level. Definitely not doing well with keeping the poker rage at the poker tables, and letting it affect my general mood. It's eye-opening and, like other painful things, probably a good learning experience.

I pretty much play every day, at least a bit. For the last week I'd been steadily chipping up, raking some nice pots here and there, playing solid, good starters holding up, hitting some draws here and there. I'd been playing pretty short sessions, calling it quits when I was up, sometimes just playing half an hour or so. As of Sunday morning I was up about $2,400 for the week. Cue foreshadowing music of doom.

Things went south pretty quickly on Sunday. A couple of huge pots getting yanked from my grubby paws by river two-outers didn't help. Getting pissed didn't help. Playing too long didn't help. By the time the smoked cleared I was only up $800 for the week, dropping about $1,600.

And therein lies the rub. Making $800 last week playing poker isn't a bad thing. Having a part-time gig that paid me $75/hour for clicking mouse buttons is amazing. Yet I was in a pissy, grumpy mood all day yesterday and still am fairly pissed today.

Hopefully, like many things, this will be cured with time and experience, as far as logging more hours at bigger tables, and knowing what to expect, and fine-tuning the internal pissometer to only get upset when it's truly warranted. While I know, logically, that a 50 BB downswing is not only normal but inevitable, in the grand scheme of things I'm not that far removed from that downswing meaning I dropped $100, instead of, you know, a decent used car.

In happier news, I absolutely kicked our yard's ass this weekend. Obliterated it. Destroyed it. Made it beg and cry for its grassy moms. If only I didn't leave in Texas where it'll grow 8.2 inches while I'm at work today.

Pretty interesting article here on News.com about start-ups funding themselves via online poker.

Nothing else to see. Move along.