October = Bleah

October was the worst month ever, winrate-wise.  Sample size is really small, though, as life outside poker has gotten busier again.  Just about all good, but busy.  I did log some hands over the last week, trying to get back into the flow.  I've been watching videos, did my own video on Deuces Cracked, listened to some strategy via podcast, and read a fair amount as well.  So, when I played, I didn't really feel too rusty (kept it at 4 tables max).

But the results still blew chunks as far as I'm concerned.  I played 100NL on FT and 50NL on Stars to build up my roll there.  Each 100NL session was a big loss, and the 50NL sessions were mostly wins.  The games didn't play that different, I didn't play that different.  The play at my 100NL tables was worse than the play on my 50NL tables a lot of the time.  In most ways I feel very in control of my game, and the ways that I am not in control I know right away I'm making mistakes, like before villain even does anything.  My playing discipline in a lot of ways is really strong, but let's just say I really need to make myself pause before acting.  I'm doing things I know I should not (and not doing some things I know I should), and it's because even with only a couple tables open, I'm not thinking things through enough.

I continue to at least in some part take a running-bad stretch and augment it with playing-bad.  Not a ton, but still way more than I should.

Something else happened to me over the last week that always scares me...I couldn't find any hands where I was really torn about how to play...outside of the mistakes I knew right away I made, everything else seemed either standard or even that I played it well.  The reason this scares me is that I don't think I'm good enough to play 3,000 hands and not be torn.  Again, I don't think I played perfect, just that I'm looking back on it and not questioning.

So, my plan is to get a session going with Jared this week and have him just watch me play and see if anything jumps out at him.  I'm a bit at sea right now with my game...feeling in control of it and losing at an alarming rate (over 10k hands, now, and more importantly to me, like 2 months long).  It's difficult to maintain confidence because I don't have a long-term track record yet.  Honestly I don't think I ever will have a long term track record...the game conditions and my condition changes more quickly than I can log say 100k hands.  Anyway, I think that I can substitute some of the confidence/game assessment with a coach.  That leads to a different problem:  if my current winrate (lose-rate, really) continues too much longer, I won't really have the bankroll to happily get coaching, at least from Jared.  Oh, woe is me :P.

Hmm, this is coming off pretty whiny to me.  Bottom line, I think, is that I'm suffering a crisis of confidence which is sapping my enthusiasm to play.  And I'm starting to wonder if I'm wired to play poker well.  I mean, I've now been at 100NL for a year.  I've been able to push into 200NL, but those shots have failed.  And now, I'm in sight of having to drop back down below 100NL again.  I'm smart and all that, but if I haven't been able to move past what I consider to be a pretty basic level yet, I'm not sure I'll ever do well in the game.  I'll still play, study, etc., because I still find it interesting.  But with all the coaching, videos, study work, software, datamining, etc., I really think I should be able to crush at these stakes if I were any good.  And not only am I not crushing, I'm barely treading water over 100k+ hands, and have been sinking like a stone over the last 25k or so.