I'm going to interrupt my WSOP Main
Event
story because there's just no need for me to write about something that
sucks that much right now. I'd rather focus on the positive at
moment...after just a couple more lines...
As I write this, I'm down to one table after another brutal Sunday
session. I lasted a grand total of eight hands COMBINED in two of the
biggest tournaments of the day: the Warm Up and the $750k guaranteed.
This was partially due to something that was such a statistical anomaly
that I have to share it. I busted out of three different tournaments by
running into quads, twice when I had boats...all on paired boards, not
ones with open sets.
To be fair, I also flopped quads once during the session. And a note to
all of the people who think
juice cards all online poker is rigged for action: I've
never seen quads this many times in a session (25-35 tournaments), let
alone hold or be up against them that many times!
But despite being on another brutal, six-figure downswing, I've managed
to remain positive and still be pretty happy overall. It's probably
partially due to my move to Las Vegas, which I'm very happy about so
far.
Another thing that has really helped is my conscious
efforts to keep my poker and my *real* life separate. Now, this is an
easy thing for most people to do...but at some point after I learned how
to
play hold'em, I became so engrossed in the game that I did almost nothing but grind for a couple of years.
Although this helped me cut my teeth, it was often not healthy...physically or mentally.
I
lost touch with friends and some family for a while, lost track of
current events and politics (partially due to the Bush Reich making me
want to pull my hair out), and wasn't even watching my favorite sports
team in the world, the New York Rangers.
Over the past couple of years, I've gotten back to living a relatively normal life, for a poker player.
Although
I've spent most of my time living in casino towns since I was of age, I
haven't played any table games at all since I turned 21 and started
playing poker for a living. That's not to say I wasn't
playing blackjack at the Taj when I was 19, but that's another story...
A friend was asking me about a hand right after I had just finished a
particularly brutal online session on Tuesday, and I replied something
to the effect of "Pleasssse don't ask me about poker right now. I'm done
for the night, and trying to get back to my other life so that I won't
feel like crap."
In response, he asked me to teach him how to
do that. I thought he was being sarcastic, but then he said he was dead
serious. It made me think of how many poker players must get stuck in
the same grind and mentality that I was once in.
It's a bit of a
stretch to call it a separate life, but I guess that's a good way to
describe it in a sense. Many pro poker players seem almost
manic-depressive based on their short-term results.
This is no
way to live, especially when you play tournament poker for a living. You
will be losing in the short run a vast majority of time when you play
tournament poker!
I spend a lot of time going out with my
girlfriend Aimee (yes, AllInAt420sGirl/AllIn420Girl is really my
girlfriend. She must get that question every session she plays). We go
to the movies, shows, tons of restaurants...all the normal stuff. I'm
also getting back into some of my old interests, the next of which is
hockey.
I played very seriously in high school and college, but basically stopped when I started grinding so much.
I
recently checked out the rink that's here in Vegas, and am going to
start playing some pickup games and eventually get back into leagues. I
really can't wait, especially since it's the only way that I can really
stick with an exercise regimen.
I've also recently begun to pursue some new hobbies, which are shooting and boating/tubing. Much thanks to Paul Wasicka for being the one to finally dragging me out to do both of these things, and training my newb arse at both.
I hadn't shot a gun since I was 8 years old and my Dad helped me hold
a shotgun while we shot cans at my Dad's friend's campsite atop the
Catskill Mountains in upstate NY. We went to a local firing range in
Vegas and shot 9mm and .45 handguns, then decided to try out "Little
Dragon."
"Little Dragon" is a FULLY automatic HANDGUN that
fires off 25 rounds in under two seconds. The kick makes it very
difficult to keep it under control, though. I still managed to hit the
target with at least 13 of the rounds, and actually performed quite well
overall despite
marked cards lenses being such a rookie.
We also went down to Lake
Mead with a group of people, which is 40 minutes from Vegas. It's the
artificial lake that's held in by the Hoover Dam. We rented a speedboat
and a "party boat." We just go out there and have a party on one boat,
and use the speedboat to take two people tubing at a time.
Let
me just say...trying to hold down your lunch after a few beers while
friends try to fling you off the the tube at ~40-50 MPH is good times.
Such good times, in fact, that I've rented the boats again for tomorrow.
Hopefully I can keep up my streak of never being flung off the tubes!
I just went from ninja mode to a pretty good stack in the $215+rebuys,
so I guess I should probably get back to focusing on that instead of
continuing to ramble...
Editor's Note: We received word that
Stout went on to finish second in this event for $28,500 and has thusly
retracted his statements about the brutality of this particular Sunday.
- Matt Stout
PS - While writing this blog, my friend jfiiue4/Petit just busted deep
in a $50 freezeout while across the table from me, said "good game me,"
and ripped his shirt in half like he was The Incredible Hulk. I haven't
laughed so hard in a long time.
I nearly choked!
