The past little while has been great for me and I have won every day for the past 4 days, winning about 250k. It feels great to have four consecutive winning days after this downswing. I have also been doing a lot of analysis on hands the past few days and found some leaks. I think my winrate has dropped during this downswing. Not a huge amount but spending some time reviewing full sessions has shown me that I am not playing my best. I would estimate my winrate has dropped 10-15% which isn't a huge amount but coupled with some run bad it just amplifies the downswing.

A few years ago when I was still in school I won a seat to a WSOP circuit event in New Orleans. It was a very fun event for me as I managed to final table it. It was my first time on TV and as a college kid I thought that was pretty cool. Unfortunately I was the first one out and won about 25k.

With the excitement still in me I ran back to the hotel room and mapped out every single MTT I was going to play for the next year. I am a bit compulsive about things so when I sat down to decide which events I was going to play, I went for every single one. The schedule I outlined was so crazy that no one could possibly do it. The plan was to play pretty much every 5k+ event all around the world. Luckily this was before the tours in Asia and South America, but I was planning on traveling to every EPT, every WPT, every WSOP circuit event and a full WSOP schedule as well.

The schedule was so rigorous that I was only going to be home in Santa Barbara for 3-4 days at a time between events and some trips would contain three stops which would require traveling all around the world.

My first stop was a WSOP circuit event in Lake Tahoe and it was a few weeks after the New Orleans event. I made it through the first day with a good chip stack, only to bust early in the 2nd day when I was under set. I had to fly home empty handed and it was then that I realized how tough the live tournament life must be. Outside of the WSOP, I didn't play the other tournaments that I had on my ridiculous schedule that year. I scrapped my whole plan once I realized how brutal all the travel is and that you obviously aren't going to final most of the MTTs you play.

So tonight I got that bug again. I think the main reason it came back is that I haven't played a live MTT in over 8 months.

This year for the WSOP we are renting a house instead of staying in a hotel, which I think will make the time spent in Vegas much nicer. Hotels are great for a few days, but not for a few weeks or even months. I looked at the WSOP schedule and saw about 7 or 8 events that I would like to play. I started day dreaming about how fun it would be to play all these events. Then I snapped back to reality and began remembering how much of a grind live MTTs are. There is nothing worse than playing poker for a day or two and busting from a tournament without even making the money.

So instead of trying to do these 7 or 8 tournaments I am going to set my goals lower. I would like to play the 25k WPT championship in April and I really want to play the 50k 8 game mix tournament at the WSOP. I am really looking forward to that one as I love smaller fields. It's really tough playing a tournament for three days and then busting without even making the money. I love fields where if you make it to day two you are getting close to the final table.

After that I would like to play the 25k 6 handed NLH event but that may be getting too far ahead of myself. So instead of setting a goal I will never reach, I am going to set a goal of playing two tournaments, the 25k WPT finals and the 50k 8 game. If I can accomplish this I hope to also play the 25k 6 handed event.