Stephen Groom Music Producer? Poker Pro? Sports Bettor? Tune in next post to find out

Losing losing losing!

Well I joked about it last week when I said:

Words fail me for something specific to write but I can completely say that two weeks in I have never felt happier about my financial, employment and future security than I do now.  This is a tough thing to measure however as if I had have had a £651 losing day prior to writing this blog then this whole paragraph would be completely different.

Now it's time to do it... So I moved up to 100nl, and as any poker pro will tell you:  moving up is not an easy experience.  I remember hearing Andrew 'Balugawhale' Seidman discussing how he felt the first time he lost a $10, $50, or $100 stack and the fact that when moving between certain limits that everyone gets crushed to start with.  It turns out that I am no exception.  Given that I had heard Balugawhale discuss this phenomenon and the reasons that it happens I thought that I would find it pretty easy moving up.  So I fired up some £0.50/£1.00 tables, sat with £100 and started to play like I would any other session.  Then began the worst losing period of my poker playing life.  I lost in excess of 20 buy-ins.  I will list my first 10 100nl sessions below.  It it pretty discusting!

• 2hrs -451
• 4hrs +196
• 2hrs -188
• 2hrs -253
• 2hrs -267
• 4hrs -145
• 3hrs -9
• 3hrs -397
• 1hrs +23
• 3hrs -372

It was horrific.  Every time I opened sky, I expected that I was going to lose £200 and every time I did.  This went on until I was losing well in excess of £2,000 on sky since moving up and it started to have a serious effect on my mindset.  I mentioned last week that crippling varience would be an expectation of mine and that I would have to get used to it whether I liked it or not.  I also spoke about what my approach would be to dealing with such financial swings and that I must ensure that it does not effect my mindset or gameplay.  Well... It turns out that the difference between losing £1,xxx and £2,xxx was pretty major for me.  Had this happened while I was still playing 50nl it would not be unusual to me.  I would probably have continued playing through the downswing and not even considered that it would be something worth blogging about.  The fact that I was losing twice as much money each session/pot, and about 3x as much money as I ever had during this staking deal meant that it was very scary to think about winning the money back.

The odd thing about what happened is this.  I went on a huge 100nl downswing before ever experiencing a large period of winning at the limit, or an upswing.  This meant that the only measure of how long it would take to win back this money was the winrate which I had established at 50nl.  At that rate, it would have taken me well over a month to get out of this hole which would unfortunately meant 1 full month without pay.  A scary prospect.  This went on for days and I just couldn't win a hand!  No bad beat stories, no bitching, but seriously.  It was unbeliabable.  After my backer sent me another reload I was scared to open sky incase I lost another huge chunk of £££ and I had to tell him how much I'd lost again.

I'm not a psycologist but I'm pretty sure I was a little unhealthy or unstable at this time.  Probably depressed.  IDK.  Anyway, things got so bad after ~5 days that I started to jump into contingencies and what would happen when this poker pro thing met it's untimely end.  I started thinking about going back to work.  Would I be able to find a job in time to make a paychque for November?  Would Aspers take me back (lol!)?  Would I ask to go back?  Wait.. Wait.. Wait.. this is all silly.  I still have some £££.  Could I play on my own money if things got out of hand with Ben and he dropped me?! (At this point I should mention that Ben had never given any indication of intent to drop me.  Nor had he given up on any horses this easily before.  The thought that he was going to was a completely irrational one and is somewhat telling of the rediculous mindset I was in and the stupid thoughts going through my head.)  So yeah.  I was pretty messed up.  I have had a pretty rediculous week and I am glad that I have came out of it alive and kicking!

I don't know what changed or what happened but all of a sudden a few days ago I started winning.  2 days ago infact I had my biggest winning day lifetime and won ~£680.  This is what I was talking about when I said that I had no idea of the winnings that were going to come as a result of playing 100nl.  Just the losses.  So yeah.  I am more than half way out of makeup and I think that all of my worries and rediculous thoughts that came as a result of being stuck so much money have passed over me never to rise again.  I must say though that this moving up thing, and the downswing that unfortunately went with it is an experience.  One which I would not like to have to repeat again.

Cheers
Stephen