Some psychological aspects of poker: past rungood results, short-term goals & a timid fear for the future

Hi folks.

I feel a bit down today, despite still winning quite big on a daily basis. I checked my HEM - by stakes - reports and, even though I've allways known I've been running good so far, I came to think that a downswing/runbad period is likely to happen soon. Here's a screenshot of my play from last two months, and from December so far.

December so far:

As you can see, the winrate in NL50 has been huge so far and I expect it to adjust to "my real" rate, which i believe should be between 4 to 6.5bb/100. These results so far are likely the prelude for a downswing that I'm not used to have, and i'm pretty sure it will be hard to deal with. My coach and some of my poker friends truly know that even when things don't go my way for two days in a row, you can tell the difference in my mood.


Enough crying.
My short term goals are the following:

- Buy my favourite car by the end of January. It actually isn't anything crazy, it's a very old model and can be found for ~1500€. Take a look at this beauty:

- Trip to Netherlands on February, staying at a friend's house for ten days and playing lots of poker while he's working. Then off to the coffeeshops at the evenings :D


I'll let you know in a few weeks how December ended for me. Best of luck to everyone!

Introduction

Hello everyone!

My name is Iru and this will be my poker blog. For now, all I can say is my poker life has been short, started as a SNG player and 9 months ago I quitted those high variance games in order to learn cash, full ring. I've built my bankroll from 200$ to a healthy, NL50 one moving up through nl2,5, 10 & nl25. The thing that has helped me the most was joining Team Moshman (www.teammoshman.com), where I've been getting weekly coaching for a percentage of my profits. I've been helped a ton and it has improved my game more than anything else, but nonetheless I have worked hard on my own as well, spending many hours studying Cardrunners videos and poker books. In poker, just like in any matter in life, being better than average requires work, discipline and time.

If anyone out there is already playing NL25 and looking to take the next step on improving drastically, I recommend the book Small-Stakes No-Limit Hold'em, by Ed Miller, Sunny Mehta & Matt Flynn. That book is the most useful source of information I've been able to find up to date, it's truly a masterpiece.

Now onto bragging a little, November was a very very good month for me. Despite not playing much, I still won a lot. Certainly the 9.5bb/100 winrate isn't sustainable, yet it feels very good :).