Keep Moving

The note said, "We missed you."
Between the lines it read,
"We waited for so long,
But now it's time to keep moving along."

I'm probably not in the best condition to write at the moment. I've been up too long on too little sleep for days. All the cool kids got to go to Vegas, surviving on four minus hours of sleep per night. Meanwhile, I have trouble finding four hours in a row to sleep without even leaving my house.

All kinds of fun and excitement in my life this week. I sort of accidentally slipped and fell into the 5/10 games on Party, which adds a bit of adrenaline back into the game. Oddly, I don't think I even realized it was gone. I'd been wearing my super-conservative bankroll management as a mark of pride. Now it seems to have been a badge of fear. I'm not going to go nuts and start playing outside my ability to dodge the wrath of Darth Variance, but I think I'm pretty safe requiring as little as 300BB (rather than 500BB) before I let myself play a given level.

It seems clear now that, whether you're approaching poker as business or hobby, you will be best served by moving up as fast as possible. As a business, the benefits are obvious: most businesses ultimately must expand to grow past a certain point. More directly, it's the only way you have to give yourself a raise to reward your hard work and increased skill.

Those who view poker as a hobby often have an easier time getting comfortable at a given limit, but it's no less damaging. Unless you're ultimately playing with money that you don't expect to keep (as oh so many of these people on PartyPoker must be), poker has to be played for the long term. You have to remain constantly vigilant to ensure that you don't make mistakes. Playing the same tables with the same players day after day, throwing out the same bets over and over, will inevitably encourage players to let down their guards. It doesn't take too many cold-calls to sacrifice every bit of +EV you've managed to scrape together by learning to lay down A6s under the gun.

As with most things, the place to be is balanced on the edge of the blade. You want to be just far enough outside of The Comfort Zone that you can feel the knife pressing on your skin, but not so far that it cuts. The little trickle of brain-juice that's produced when you know that failure might hurt is sometimes what it takes to spur success. Or at least for me. Your mileage may vary. No warranty, either express or implied, etc.

I know this has all been said before. To be honest, I have a feeling I borrowed a metaphor or two from another blogger, but I swear I googled for quotes and couldn't find any. I think I'm mostly trying to convince myself anyway. I still consider it a rare bonus when someone other than myself even gets to the last sentence.

posted by Captain Freeman @ 7:23 AM