I've been meaning to get around to doing a big scoop review, but I've just been busy for one reason or another. Just a little warning, I didn't intend it to be anywhere near this long but just started writing and kept tapping away at my iPad. You are absolutely excused if you don't want to read
Pre scoop
Pre I guess I would classify as around 10 weeks of solid mtt grinding. I had started at around 1000th in the world and 100th or so in the UK on pocket fives, it was always a goal to climb higher and most weeks I would check how I did.
In the few months I had good success. I final tanked a lot of major events including the biggest ever Sunday million, managed to chop a warm up and the big 162 on Sunday and was enjoying playing the daily mtt schedule that felt like a routine, something ironically I think I had missed by being a cash game player sleeping whenever I wanted, regularly waking up at stupid times. Now I knew I had to be awake in time to get food before the 100r started. It sounds stupid, but mtt grinding had finally given me some routine in my life!
Around 5 weeks before scoop I was really looking forward to it, looking at the schedule, deciding what I'd play, even being the first person to start selling on 2p2, the whole thing seemed like it was coming at a great time, I was grinding everyday and it seemed great that my hard work would be rewarded with an exciting schedule where I could play for big money. On the lead up to scoop I had some really good scores and seemed to be constantly winning day after day and I just kinda expected this to continue into the biggest fortnight of the year
Start of scoop
Scoop started pretty slowly for me. I had ran bad in all of the high buy ins, the 1ks, the 2ks etc and I remember one night sitting at my PC when everybody had gone to bed and started to feel depressed about the whole thing. I wrote a really long post about my feelings but decided not to post it because of some of the responses I get on 2p2 when I ever say anything negative about MTTs "how can you moan after this year you've had" etc. The main point was though that in those 3 months leading upto scoop I was probably in the top 10 most successful players online. I was in a very happy stage of my life, surrounded by people I care about and people who cared about me. I had a huge hunger for the game and I was grinding very hard and doing very well. Despite all of this every night I went to sleep thinking "one less sleep till scoop" here I was, seemingly doing so well and yet I strived for more. I didn't go to bed thinking "wow I'm really happy with how things are right now let's continue this" it was more "ok how can I go one step bigger".
I think I've seen this trait relatively often throughout my career as a poker player and not realized it, perhaps it's super normal, idk. For example thinking back, almost as soon as I was a 1k zoom reg doing well I used to think very often about playing 2k or 5k. When I went to Vienna initially for the ept main and some side events I finally decide to play the highroller, completely unplanned. There was something about me, my personality perhaps that could have been a huge leak, I've been fighting it extremely hard this week but will get into that later. But this had suddenly made me depressed about scoop just 3 days in, perhaps I was just being abit ridiculous and I'm sure you will think so too!
Anyway, I basically decided I wouldn't take any time off during scoop. I quickly came 15th or so in a 2k super knockout which dented the previous losses and then on the back end of scoop I managed to chop the plo8 for 22k, final the 200cubbed for 25k and then finally have a deep run in the main event for 36k. Outside of actually scoop events I came 3rd/4th in back to back weeks in the trex for 30k and then won the 100r twice and multiple other good scores in high stakes MTTs to make scoop a very successful two weeks.
At the end of scoop I felt good yet perhaps a little bit sad. This was the biggest buy in online event I've ever played. It was very, very fun. I played fearlessly (I hate these words when describing yourself) throughout and had some very fun battles vs Phil Ivey and Isildur as well as multiple other complete sickos. Around the bubble I 6bet bluffed and managed to give myself a good stack going into day 2. I guess this is where the next self doubt came in..
Many poker players have something that inside they know isn't right with their game but perhaps they are too scared to really look into it in case they face the realization they are not as good as their ego wants them to be. For years mine was always that I didn't fold to 3bets. The average f3b is 55/65% and mine was 25% for a long, long time! I kinda always knew this was a huge theoretical leak! but because of the way I shaped my game plan it didn't matter. If I had tried to play gto or as perfectly as people would expect or like me to play I seriously doubt I would be where I am today.
Anyway, in tournaments I knew I was playing a little bit too tight late on when I didn't have chips. When I had chips I would be crazy but without chips I think subconsciously I knew I was playing a little bit too tight, which for anybody who knows me remotely well will know didn't sit too comfortably with me!
I wanted to be really focused for this day 2. Unfortunately throughout, I was just extremely card dead, I really had no hands at all and despite this found myself all in or 3betting or 4betting way more than my cards would usually dictate. I was kinda proud though, if I had just played very right and let neverscaredb and stammdog et al just raise every hand I would have just blinded out, I really gave myself a good chance of getting to the final table and whilst it does suck to come so close yet be so far away (20th for 35k when 1st is 1.2m) I really didn't feel bad at all, I didn't feel like I'd left anything on the felt and knew I couldn't have done anything differently.
This gave me a huge mental boost which came at a good time at the end of scoop. The field would now be softer, everybody would be going to Vegas and I would have a chance of a really good, uncomplicated summer on the virtual felt. Throughout scoop I had been checking pocket fives every day, without going into too much detail, I was using it as a huge motivation tool. By the end of scoop I finished 1 in the UK (IMO by far the toughest nation with moorman, Toby Lewis, brammer, trigg, firaldo, hitthehole etc all battling super hard) and number 6 in the world. This led me to huge satisfaction and pride. Telling friends and family that I was ranked number 6 in the world and number 1 in the UK just felt really good. All the hard work had paid off but yet I still felt extremely underwhelmed! I wanted to be number 1 in the world, I'm so close now, why stop at number 6? Why be content at number 6?
http://uk.pokernews.com/news/2014/05/huge-scoop-scores-cause-major-uk-rankings-shake-up-14054.htmPeople ask me almost on a daily basis, why do you play MTTs, surely cash games have a huge hourly. The main thing for me is that I don't play MTTs for the hourly. When I wake up at 4pm on a monday after a huge sunday 16 hour session I don't say ok I need to be online at 6pm for the 100r to make sure I can play 7 hours and make x$/hourl I want to be online at 6pm so I can battle. So I can play vs the best, so I can continue to climb the pocket fives ladder, so I can learn, so I can improve, so I can go to bed that evening knowing I didn't go through the motions and I really put in a huge amount of effort into playing the best I could. Usually at the start of my sessions I tell myself "let's just play really good today, let's try to not make any mistakes"
What's the next big thing?
So anyway, everything is finished with scoop, the games are back and normal service can resume right? Well no not exactly.. Vegas is around the corner and friends of mine are telling me I'm absurd for not going as I'm in the form of my life, I'm running very well and from a bankroll perspective if I went and bricked a 80k schedule it wouldn't be the end of the world. I've spent countless nights staring at the schedule, almost days looking at hotels, I even booked flights 2 months ago! I've allowed myself to get back into the pre scoop mindset of excitement for that "next level" and really think it is a dangerous place mentally for me to be in. Against lots and lots and lots of strong desires, believe me, reading this article below I really want to be the guy who crushes the wsop this year, I want to be the guy who final tables 2 wsop events this year, I want to be the breakthrough player of the year, I want to get a pokerstars deal, I want to have a deep run in the 10k 6max and play against the best players in the world and I want to bag up chips at the end of the day, every day for 10 weeks, but I feel like mentally I'm still too fragile to deal with the disappointment. It doesn't matter to me if I lose 50k, obviously the money is huge but as I've said throughout here it's not money that drives me it's success and the fact is I could go to Vegas and play better than anybody else for the whole summer, make no mistakes and cash 0/30 events, I just feel like mentally I'm too weak to deal with failure and disappointment, so I feel like I'm making an extremely wise and mature decision at this point in my life where everything on the outside world lines up perfectly for me to spend 2 months in sin city for me to stay at home and grind the bigger 22!
http://uk.pokernews.com/news/2014/05/10-brits-to-watch-at-the-2014-world-series-of-poker-14032.htmI am however going to go for the main event, I'm going to go with the mindset of, I've had a very good year and this is such a huge and unmissable tournament that if I brick I brick, but I do have a chance of potentially doing really well. I will go for 1 week, not get burned out, not face the potential failure of losing day after day and having to face the same unfriendly walls of the rio corridors. I will spend 7 days in Marbella very close to where I lived for 4 years before I came to budapest where I will use it as a chance to relax a lot and of course it coincides with the ukipt so I will get a little fix, but my mindset towards it is way differently than previously. When a poker trip came up I'd look at the structures every night for weeks in advance, I'd watch poker news videos from the year before to the extent where I knew all of the words that were going to be said before even watching the same video for the 5th time! Now I will go completely open minded, looking to enjoy the week with one of my favorite people in poker a.s.e high and a couple of others who I look forward to meeting that I play against every day and just relax and regroup.
I do feel like it is a shame that mentally I feel too weak to compete in the wsop this summer. I feel like it is a shame that I have a mental leak where I always look for the "next big thing" but knowing that I know these makes me feel really good and I'm very happy with my choices for this summer and I'm really looking forward to everything. If anybody is in Marbella then hit me up, likewise for Vegas.
Apologies again about the length of this post, it had initially intended to be a lot shorter.
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