Sailing the Seas of Malaise

Not exactly sure why, but much of the wind has been taken out of my poker sails of late. I'm still playing but it's pretty haphazard and of the Stabby McStabsalot variety. I chunk money into Full Tilt or Stars, play SnGs not supported by my roll, burn through a deposit or two, run up my balance a bit, donk it back, reload, run it back up, donk it back to pretty much smack dab break even overall, rinse, repeat.

To a large extent, the decision to play SnGs is responsible for the feeling of playing on auto-pilot, aimlessly drifting around. At a certain point, they sort of play themselves, especially with late game strategy and decisions of push/don't push. So while I get a certain vicarious thrill out of the swings of variance (including ten consecutive 4th place finishes at the $120 level, whee), it's more akin to playing blackjack, albeit with a slight edge over the house.

I suppose what I'm wrestling with most is finding my own personal happy place, where I play poker and enjoy it, and leave it at that. Or, more simply, follow through on my past threats of assuming the mantle of poker hobbyist, plain and simple. I've gotten locked into the mindset that there's no point in playing unless it's for meaningful stakes, but my head is nowhere near the place it needs to be to play for meaningful stakes.

Which brings us to the point where my convoluted head pipes up and says "Umm, dude, how 'bout you just play when you feel like playing and enjoy it? What the fuck are you babbling on about. This isn't hard." And then I tell my head to shut up and drink more coffee and fire up another SnG.