Although winning that seat hasn't really helped me out of the hole for the trip, it was huge for morale and very important for tomorrow I think.
When I busted the 1k yesterday, I was thinking that I was in literally the nut worst mental state to play the main. Afterwards, I busted two sngs in standard spots and it was just withering me down further. I played the 2k and in orbit one I was raising and betting with trips when the flush came in on the river, the guy donk bet 1/3 pot. I just wanted to rip my cards up and the ground to swallow me up and be magically teleported home. Every little thing was making me annoyed or angry. Super standard stuff like an ace flopping when you have kings.
Vegas has been a huge mental test and I have pretty much failed. I can't think of too many hands that I have actually played incorrect because of this mental tilt (although there has been some for sure, and certainly many disagreements in the group chat!) So that's pretty key. If all that happens is that the losing makes you miserable, then it's less of a big deal than if it makes you actually tilt. I know that this kind of tilt will affect me in little ways I don't realise. I'm 100% focussed in preventing that as much as possible though.
I've not got entitlement tilt either - I'm not thinking how unlucky I am or that I deserve a score or anything. I'm not moaning about my luck, although yesterday I realised as I was typing that bad beat in the 1k that this was getting pretty borderline! I've just not enjoyed it!
But I was worried about how I'll react if I lose a big pot early on in the main event, how will I handle it? Whether it was even fair to Keith, or the people I've swapped with for me to play in this state!? I wonder how I would've been if I bubbled that satellite last night!
I'll be in bits if something brutal happens in the main event, but that's fine, I have a long holiday afterwards to recover.
But last night was really important for tomorrow. I feel really good now, and I will have a spa day today to relax further and be prepared as best I can.
I brought this on myself this trip by playing basically the highest variance stuff there is. Huge field MTTs and winner takes all sngs! The SNGs in particular are withering, because you get in so many allin situations, so each day is a massive battle with variance.
However Je ne regrette rien because I'm confident in my reasons for playing what I did, and didn't
need to grind cash for a worse hourly but higher likelihood of a winning trip. And I'm glad I kept going and didn't pussy out of the variance battle and play cash for the need to book a winning day, even though I ultimately lost, I won't do anything differently next year.
Bring it on in the main, I say!