First, the non poker: Because my cash game play went well in California, I decided to play the Legends main event after reading about the structure of the tourney and seeing it was a good structure. So I played on Saturday the 23rd, and busted near the end of day 1. On Sunday, I went to the Twins-Angels game (at Anaheim) with Jay, Billy, BK, John (BK's roommate), and Dave P. We had 3rd row seats about 3/4 the way down the 3rd baseline, and by the end of the game our group of 6 Twins fan had turned into about 16 strong, though unfortunately we ended up losing the game by 1. It was pretty exciting though and Angels fans were for the most part very tame. Following the game, all of us rode back in Jay's vehicle to San Diego (where him, Billy, and Dave Schnettler have a big house 6 blocks from the ocean). Then I spent the next several days playing some poker in the morning, biking to the beach during the day, having some drinks at night and a couple of nights making my way through season 2 of Heroes (incredible! can't wait for season 3).

I flew back from San Diego with BK on Thursday, and the highlight of this past weekend was going out in an escalade limo with a bunch of friends from highschool in celebration of Goodson and Kelli's engagement. The next morning was probably the most hung over I've felt in a loooong time.

Between Madeline Island, California, and then the celebration this weekend, I feel like I've kind of been on a vacation the past few weeks. I intend to play a lot more poker in September, and even started on that track while in San Diego and then the past few days.

As I continue to run bad in online LHE, one of the things I'm really struggling with is whether it'd be best to move down in limits for awhile, mainly for my own sanity. While in San Diego, I managed to play about 3500 hands, most of which were at 50/100 and 100/200 since I am trying to make myself play smaller and not care whether I win or lose much. I won $20,000ish in that time, which doesn't include red pro bonuses. It's got me thinking though: Can I just stick to "grinding" (so to speak) and accept that alone with that I'm not going to have as many huge days as I've gotten accustomed to, but likewise, I won't get annoyed and be hating life because of big losing streaks. Doing some number crunching, between my own earn rate and the red bonuses, it'd still be easily doable to make anywhere from $250,000-$350,000 (or maybe even more) simply putting in a lot of hours and playing a lot of tables and _grinding_ $30/60 to $100/200, without nearly as much stress thanks to losing streaks being much smaller numbers than what is capable of happening playing $200/400+. Ask me 5 years ago whether I'd be happy making $300,000 a year, and I'd have been ecstatic.

So then, what's my hurdle? Really, and unfortunately enough, it's pride. I want to be known as the best 6-max player in the world. I want to uphold that reputation, which can only really be done by playing $200/400+. I truly believe I either am, or else I'm right alongside the best. Yet I don't know how many more sessions my mental sanity can take of getting my brains blown in nearly every time I play at least $200/400 online. And I have to admit, it was relaxing just doing the ol grind while in San Diego. I didn't even run that hot in 50/100 or 100/200, yet managed to win $20,000 in less than a week (I ran at 2.2bb/100... admittedly far from cold, yet not like out of this world hot). I'm blogging about my mental sanity right now because today I played 1200 hands at $200/400 and lost $17,000 in it, while loudly cursing into the sky more times than I ever have in my life playing online poker (not even close.... I would guess I did about 30 times today. And those who know me know I'm suuuuper even-keeled about poker and calm about everything in general). $17,000 losses happen in 200/400 all the time, it shouldn't be any big deal, yet there I was getting twirked out about taking moronic beat after moronic beat (or coolers!) in nearly every big pot I played after managing to put in most of the action as a big favorite (other than my 99 vs KK K9x flop...). I keep telling myself, "this shit can't keep on going on forever," yet it never seems to show any sign of slowing down. Today I felt bothered by the fact my week of disciplined grinding got wiped away by one $200/400 session in which I can think of nearly a dozen $4000+ pots I got 2-6 outed in.

But, I'm nearing the end of my ropes. I want to enjoy poker again, and if that means I'm going to play smaller games and multitable the hell out of my downswing, then so be it I'm nearing that point where my mental sanity is going to have to take precedence to satisfying my ego and desire to be known as the best. Heck, maybe I can even convince myself that part of being the best is having a willingness to do what's going to make me happiest and not care what anybody else thinks about it -- which at this moment in time, is accepting a pay cut by playing smaller games and being happier not getting slapped around quite so much like I'm variance's bitch.

That's enough whining for now. I'm still very confident about my LHE game and very happy with how I've played. I know I am +EV in the games I am playing in, and I know that eventually the deck will start being a little fairer. And if it doesn't any time soon, I can always fall back on playing live, since my spreadsheet the last few months says that I should be a live pro ;). Seriously though, thank goodness for my live play, since even though the last 4 months have been the most difficult, trying 4 months of online poker ever for me and I'm quite convinced nobody in high stakes online LHE has ran worse than me over this stretch, I'm still actually up money the past 4 months...

And now, a fun little song remake that I'm a fan of. Click and enjoy, since I can't seem to figure out how to embed youtube videos yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSvrCPFXAKs&feature=rec-fresh