So Boring

I woke up today and to be completely honest had no idea what to do with myself. I don't really do well when there isn't a plan for the day, for several reasons. First of all I'm a "what's next" kind of guy. I go through progressions, make to do lists, all the usual stuff people like that do, and when there isn't a "next" I tend to get anxious and fidgety. This trait is a big reason I struggled as a developer; I didn't really have like a "what's next" thing for say 6 or 12 months out. At school it was always easy; do this problem set, then study for this test so you'll pass this class so you can take 4 more classes next term. Turns out it wasn't so simple in the real world. Anyway...another reason I need a plan is that it bothers me if I end up doing something inefficiently. Like I'll look back on the day and be like "I could have gotten that all done a lot faster" and feel bad about it. That's just stupid and I need to stop it. So anyway I tooled around online for a few hours being vaguely productive, then almost gave into the urge to play poker because let's be honest I just don't know what to do with myself otherwise. I went to the gym, and then Babar saved the day, demanding my presence at "lunch" (which in babar time happens around 2pm), then went bowling (145/128 second game was so awful I did things like 5-spare 2-4 all of a sudden that's 18 through 2 frames) and now am back home tricking myself into thinking I'm being productive.

What does that have to do with anything, you ask? Well I'll tell you. I just sort of finished up my lifetime stats project and can present you with some numbers from 2008-2011. I only bothered with 15/30 games and above, and only limit hold 'em. I've found in times of stress, anger, and in general dissatisfaction it's always helpful to look at lifetime numbers. So, drum roll, please...

Total Hours: 5756

That ain't bad, given all the constraints we're dealing with here. I wasn't even a full time pro for the first 7 months of this time period, so we're really looking at 3.5 years, so basically right around 16oo hours/year. That's about right, and it doesn't count time spent in smaller games (there were garden city prop shifts where I spent the entire night in the 8/16 game) and NL and all other stuff.

Total Bets Won: 3851

That ain't bad either. It works out to almost exactly 2/3rds of a bet per hour. To be honest with how bad I play from time to time this really makes me think that a bet per hour is probably doable. However I'm pretty sure my win rate has plummeted since my first 1000 hours or so. A little more detail:

20/40 Stats: 3812 hours at .79 bets per hour

This is quite good, but again is affected greatly by my initial run hot period. To wit, through my first ~1700 hours of 20/40 or so (2008 and 2009 results from Bay 101 and Garden City, specifically) I ran at over 1.1 bets per hour. Think about what that means I've done since then and you'll kind of cringe a little. Like...it's not good. Did I play better back then? I'd hate to think that. Did I run better? For sure. And here's the kicker...were the games better? Abso-freaking-lutely.

40/80 Stats: 1077 hours at .56 bets per hour

These numbers are pretty astonishing, to be honest. At least to me, anyway, and therefore I'd assume to most people reading. I only played 1077 hours of 40/80? Seriously? And despite my initial devastation (- 130 bets at Bay 101 in 2008 and 2009, -125 bets at HG in a week in early 2010, -230 bets lifetime in the Commerce 40) I am showing a substantial win rate? Holy crap that's great and leads us too....

Current Employer 40/80 Bets/Hour: 1.25

That's right. Last year I made an even, flat, $100/hour when I was sitting in the 40/80 game where I work. Which really makes you wonder why exactly I bother staying on the payroll at all. Looking at all this stuff really has made me wonder what kind of damage I can do this year if I am really truly committed. Like you read about....

You see that's the thing here. A lot of the advice I've been getting has been that I need to just chill out and not let stuff bother me. A lot of it has been along the lines of me having white people problems (usually referred to as rich people problems but let's be honest and get the pc bullshit here), specifically that I'm pretty much surrounded by good options why am I stressing out about picking the absolute best one? One way you could take this advice, in its entirety, is that I need to just chill out, accept that there are parts of this life style that suck, but be aware of and manage my reactions to those sucky parts and make the best of the situation, which when evaluated on an objective basis is pretty fucking awesome. I had a discussion with a friend over In 'N Out last night and he found me interesting, in that I was at the decision point of giving up or pushing onward and upward and really trying to become elite at what I do. And that makes good sense, when rolled up with the stuff I said about "what's next" in the front of this blog post. Right now I don't really have a "what's next" and that is causing me to have trouble giving a shit and going in to work and studying and all sorts of other stuff. But if I re-dedicated myself to getting better and setting goals (it's funny to say I'm going to commit to setting goals, but that's really what we're talking about here), AND changed my attitude and mental approach to dealing with the stuff I deal with on a daily basis, maybe I could make this work again.