Prose from a Poshboy

[cambridgealex]

I'm not having a go here but just generally interested as you've been doing this for a little while now, how good an understanding do you feel you have of variance in poker ? A big majority of "Live pro's" just really seem to have a pretty poor understanding of it imo, inc people who've been doing this a lot longer than you have. As I say not trolling or anything just wondered.

[X] understand it
[ ] deal with it well

It's just way harder to deal with it playing live when your downswings can last months and you can go card dead for days on end.

My posts are just saying how I'm feeling at the time, it's a diary, I'm just splurging my thoughts onto the page, it's cathartic for me and very helpful. I wasn't moaning or complaining just echoing my feelings atm. I've had way more brutal and longer downswings than this before, dw I know it could get worse before it gets better.

#thenightisdarkestjustbeforethedawn

[tikay]

Alex,

I think it's good that you post how you feel, the best diaries are "warts & all".

I think your Diary is an absolute credit to you, I really do.

Long may it last.

[cambridgealex]

Alex,

I think it's good that you post how you feel, the best diaries are "warts & all".

Yeh, part of me wants to be this cool "Keith Johnson" sort of character (he paid me to write that) who doesnt care about losing and takes everything in his stride. He's right, it's quite intimidating playing against someone so unaffected by variance. But thats not me and this is a diary so I'll include the "warts" even if every time I do I comments like

Didn't you win the monte Carlo? Or

Lollivepros

[GreekStein]

I kinda know what Monda means about variance but I think it's a bit different for us online players and your understanding of it SHOULD be a bit different to mine or Monda's who predominantly play online.

Online stacks are shorter (at least to begin with), the opposition generally better, more hands per hour (and most importantly less decision time) and more tables tends to equal playing a tad less well on each table. (6max tables are most common in online cash too rather than full ring which is a complete joke online). A few months ago I went through a 60BI downswing at 100PLO. That would never happen to me or you in a live setting imo (me because I rarely have 60bi for any game im playing lols).

I know you know that already, jus sayin that I think your understanding of variance doesnt need to be the same as an online player.

Also, agree with Tikay about your diary being a credit to you. After mine, Tikay's, Red Dog's, Vinny's, Tighty's, Monda's, Chompys, Zerofive's, Eso Kral's, Matt's gym diary and BITB, it's almost definitely my next favourite.

[George2Loose]

Alex fwiw urs is my fave diary

[SuuPRlim]

I for one have found railing the "journey" of this diary kind of enthralling, no word of a lie when I say it's one of the top things I check almost everyday

I think you get/deal with "Variance" better than you think you do also

[tikay]

Alex fwiw urs is my fave diary

Bastard.

[George2Loose]

Alex fwiw urs is my fave diary

Bastard.

Yours is far too cultured for me

[tikay]

Alex fwiw urs is my fave diary

Bastard.

Yours is far too cultured for me

I've been called a lot of things on blonde, & elsewhere, but "cultured" is not one of them. Tom will be SO jealous.

[giveyourcash]

Damn can't believe I missed a Mike stacking. That's the rarest PTR (live edition) badge of all.

[mondatoo]

I'm not having a go here but just generally interested as you've been doing this for a little while now, how good an understanding do you feel you have of variance in poker ? A big majority of "Live pro's" just really seem to have a pretty poor understanding of it imo, inc people who've been doing this a lot longer than you have. As I say not trolling or anything just wondered.

[X] understand it
[ ] deal with it well

It's just way harder to deal with it playing live when your downswings can last months and you can go card dead for days on end.

My posts are just saying how I'm feeling at the time, it's a diary, I'm just splurging my thoughts onto the page, it's cathartic for me and very helpful. I wasn't moaning or complaining just echoing my feelings atm. I've had way more brutal and longer downswings than this before, dw I know it could get worse before it gets better.

#thenightisdarkestjustbeforethedawn

I wasn't referring to your recent posts, it's pretty ironic that people don't like to read "boring", whinging posts when your are running bad but if you only posted when your winning then people would criticise you for that, us diarier's (??) have it tough, at least you have the balance of winning and losing 

I was referring more to a post you made a few weeks back about how your not enjoying live donkaments and feel that your running bad in them, tbh when I read that I thought, O RLY, you've obv ran way above ev in live mtt's, then Dom posts in his staking thread about how terrible he's ran despite binking the 2nd comp he played, going deep in another and being in contention for player off the series, huh. It's pretty tough for me to say this without offending anyone but I'm not having a go and obv since I'm running terrible it just looks like I'm bitter but I'm generally interested in how people can play for a living, have a good understanding of the game and yet come to that conclusion.

[mondatoo]

Not really sure why people thought I was criticising Alex for posting about losing when I do it a lot more than he does, I lose more, sigh, that'd be pretty ridic.

[giveyourcash]

Not really sure why people thought I was criticising Alex for posting about losing when I do it a lot more than he does, I lose more, sigh, that'd be pretty ridic.

I want to be careful here lest I lose my "silent tom" nickname (which I realise is a needle but have decided to embrace in the hopes of reclaiming it like how black people reclaimed the N word ) but which table image do you think is more profitable ceteris paribus? 

a) A guy who is running terrible bemoaning his bad luck about how he misses everything telling all his bad beat stories
b) A solid reg who has ups and downs and weathers them mostly but is sometimes overwhelmed slightly
c) A guy who "never loses" hit's every draw is the luckiest guy in the world and embraces that image with confidence.

Who are the fish going to play more passively against? Check back TPGK on the river "just in case" against? Who are the regs going to value bets less thinly against? 3 bet bluff less?

I think all of us should be trying to move from b to c as much as possible and trying to avoid a where ever we can.

Dislclaimer : this happens to be in Alex's blog as I was reading it when the idea came to me, it is in no way aimed at Alex himself who I personally think handles the swongs of poker generally very well.

[tikay]

Not really sure why people thought I was criticising Alex for posting about losing when I do it a lot more than he does, I lose more, sigh, that'd be pretty ridic.

I never thought that Mondy, but I did want to say what I did, you just gave me the excuse I needed.

[cambridgealex]

Not really sure why people thought I was criticising Alex for posting about losing when I do it a lot more than he does, I lose more, sigh, that'd be pretty ridic.

I want to be careful here lest I lose my "silent tom" nickname (which I realise is a needle but have decided to embrace in the hopes of reclaiming it like how black people reclaimed the N word ) but which table image do you think is more profitable ceteris paribus? 

a) A guy who is running terrible bemoaning his bad luck about how he misses everything telling all his bad beat stories
b) A solid reg who has ups and downs and weathers them mostly but is sometimes overwhelmed slightly
c) A guy who "never loses" hit's every draw is the luckiest guy in the world and embraces that image with confidence.

Who are the fish going to play more passively against? Check back TPGK on the river "just in case" against? Who are the regs going to value bets less thinly against? 3 bet bluff less?

I think all of us should be trying to move from b to c as much as possible and trying to avoid a where ever we can.

Dislclaimer : this happens to be in Alex's blog as I was reading it when the idea came to me, it is in no way aimed at Alex himself who I personally think handles the swongs of poker generally very well.

It's "secret Tom" not silent Tom hehe