Prose from a Poshboy

[RED-DOG]

plus the diary is gonna die out anyway now it's been sinbinned over here.

WTF? What's happened/what you mean? Did I miss something?

I was just being a mardy fucker last night! Strange considering it was my biggest winning day in 4 months! but I've been feeling crap about poker for so long now and it's starting to spill out. I usually try to keep it off the thread because not many people get it, how tough it is on your emotions and it usually just induces the wrong sort of reaction. It's always better to wait until the morning to post because you inevitably feel so much better after a good nights sleep and can think more clearly. Always end up regretting when I do post, like I do now.

I can really identify with this post Alex.

If your going to post about your poker life you have to write about the bad times and emotions as well as the good times, but even if you are really objective and genuine about it, people still tend to take it the wrong way or make it into something it isn't.

Lol. Does that make any sense at all?


If it's any consolation, I write several posts every week, on a variety of subjects, and then decide it's best to press 'delete' instead of 'post'

[VBlue]

Alex - poker is your job.  It is bound to get to you.  My work gets to me.  What is that is causing this 'feeling crap'?

Keeping a diary/blog going requires a whole load of motivation in itself.  I only write once a month and sometimes that can be difficult.  I don't have nearly as much interesting stuff going on in my life to write about, so I find myself talking more about conceptual stuff and am aware that I am in dange of becoming repetitive.

With my interest in the coaching I am doing, the Mental Game, and my own online poker game, I might migrate to a wordpress (or similar) site and run it with ongoing articles on each subject as 'features', and try to monetise the whole thing with some carefully selected referral links related to the feature articles.

Might not suit you but there are other outlets than the diary format here if you need to freshen things up.

[VBlue]

With regards to RED-DOGs last comment, I have done this myself in the past.  It helps to write thoughts down, think back over if there is any worth in posting, and then deleting if not.

[celtic]

If it's any consolation, I write several posts every week, on a variety of subjects, and then decide it's best to press 'delete' instead of 'post'

We can but dream!

[kinboshi]

If it's any consolation, I write several posts every week, on a variety of subjects, and then decide it's best to press 'delete' instead of 'post'

We can but dream!

Was just about to post "If only Vinny employed that strategy more often."

[outragous76]

When I am feeling mardy, or down for no real reason, I really try to just put things in perspective,

today I read this, which was just the ticket for the January blues I was suffering.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21187740

in particular

When I went in for the diagnosis and the doctor told me 'You've got cancer' it was quite plain it was an inoperable thing, there was nothing they could do.

"We walked out of there and I felt an elation of spirit. You're walking along and suddenly you're vividly alive. You're looking at the trees and the sky and everything and it's just 'whoah'.

[jakally]

When I am feeling mardy, or down for no real reason, I really try to just put things in perspective,

today I read this, which was just the ticket for the January blues I was suffering.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21187740

in particular

When I went in for the diagnosis and the doctor told me 'You've got cancer' it was quite plain it was an inoperable thing, there was nothing they could do.

"We walked out of there and I felt an elation of spirit. You're walking along and suddenly you're vividly alive. You're looking at the trees and the sky and everything and it's just 'whoah'.

I read that this morning Guy. Gave me a massive kick up my ample backside.

[RED-DOG]

When I am feeling mardy, or down for no real reason, I really try to just put things in perspective,

today I read this, which was just the ticket for the January blues I was suffering.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21187740

in particular

When I went in for the diagnosis and the doctor told me 'You've got cancer' it was quite plain it was an inoperable thing, there was nothing they could do.

"We walked out of there and I felt an elation of spirit. You're walking along and suddenly you're vividly alive. You're looking at the trees and the sky and everything and it's just 'whoah'.

I read that this morning Guy. Gave me a massive kick up my ample backside.

I just wrote a reply to this, then deleted it.

[edgascoigne]

plus the diary is gonna die out anyway now it's been sinbinned over here.

WTF? What's happened/what you mean? Did I miss something?

I was just being a mardy fucker last night! Strange considering it was my biggest winning day in 4 months! but I've been feeling crap about poker for so long now and it's starting to spill out. I usually try to keep it off the thread because not many people get it, how tough it is on your emotions and it usually just induces the wrong sort of reaction. It's always better to wait until the morning to post because you inevitably feel so much better after a good nights sleep and can think more clearly. Always end up regretting when I do post, like I do now.

I can understand how this must be tricky. To many you have the "nut" lifestyle, which I'd imagine is often partly caused, and this isn't meant in a pejorative sense towards those who have these feelings at all, by "the grass being greener". That is to say someone who works a traditional full-time job, in which (s)he is fulfilled in some ways but not in others, satisfied with certain aspects (but one naturally forgets this over time) but frustrated with others, who perhaps enjoys many of the facets of poker and deems to dedicate their 'free' time to the game....is jealous of the fact that your 'work' time is filled by, to their mind, what they do in their 'free' time.

The difficulty of course comes in the fact that the translation between the two is far from perfect. Your responsibilities to yourself with regards the game of poker are different/greater to those of the onlooker - does this make sense? As such one can easily make light of the concept of playing poker for a living, but to do so in my opinion is a gross underestimation of the difficulties that are part and parcel of the 'job'.

All of which means that you can't really 'vent'. If someone works a gruelling 8-5 on a building site people sympathise when they are exhausted. If someone works in the medical profession and is particularly upset by the plight of a patient, people sympathise. If a pro poker player is affected by a downswing, becomes frustrated with aspects of the game, or whatever the negative emotion might be....people don't sympathise because they lack the empathy present in the previous examples as to them poker=leisure.

Right, enough philosophical nonsense. Get your head down, work hard, play well, be good for the game. Next Wednesday you're getting in a chauffeur-driven car to London before heading France to smash up a load of frogs at poker in a city that even I won a comp in.

Get a grip

[cambridgealex]

Nailed it, Ed

[edgascoigne]

Nailed it, Ed

Good. Invoice is in the post.

[George2Loose]

Think part of it is to do with the instant success you've had too. You've never really had to grind it out for long so when people see you moan even those who do know the brutality of the game think "that posh twat is moaning again"

[cambridgealex]

Think part of it is to do with the instant success you've had too. You've never really had to grind it out for long so when people see you moan even those who do know the brutality of the game think "that posh twat is moaning again"

yeh exactly this too. easy for them to see the life as a whole, or my "career" over the 2/3 years as a whole in which ive been very lucky. but not easy for me to always do that, and 4months of losing / breaking even is a long time for anyone, but it's hard to get that across without moaning so I don't really try.

[taximan007]

Alex, when you are feeling low/shitty beating yourself up do you ever go home and seek the advice of your parents have a real good heart to heart?

None of my business really just wondered if you seeked input from people 'outside' the poker world.

[rfgqqabc]

Feel free to moan to me. I'll keep the lucky posh bastard grumbles down. Can't wait for the live game tonight. I've had 5 days virtually off playing which is one of the longest times when I've had that amount of time off since 2011!

Just keep grinding away man, the poker professionals a really tough lifestyle mentally to live. Keep at it and keep living the dream.