Poker Must Be For Me

I mean, really. If it can go as wrong as it has for the last several days, and I still like playing the game, I must be meant to play.

Okay, first off, the technical issues. Without getting too far into the deets, I've been trying to improve the performance of the laptop for pokerz. It's a Mac running Windows (cause some of the programs I want to use don't run on Mac OS), and it was no problem until I got into mass tabling. It starts freaking out anywhere between 12-16 tables, which is pretty frustrating. So I found this guy who can do some technical whatnots to make it run better, but we've been hitting snag after snag. I don't want to write seventeen paragraphs about this (though I could), but it has been terrible. Every time I think it's solved, something else pops up. And because I've been trying to test it, I've been pushing it to the edge and as a result have had a couple crashes and several mass-table timeout piss offs. Nothing worse than a 70/40 open shoving into my flopped top set, and I can't fucking call cause the computer's losing its mind. I try to convince myself his backdoor flush draw was gonna get there, but it's cold comfort. I'm not sure how much $ I've lost to this shit, but its more than a little for sure.

I am going to have my brand spanking new PC on Wednesday, and it will help immeasurably. But I still gotta figure out something with the laptop. I've been considering just biting the bullet and buying a PC laptop, they're pretty cheap, but I really want to keep the Mac as my main computer (cause Apple is A#1), and I don't want to travel with two laptops. So I'm holding out. Maybe my tech guy will come up with something, or maybe Poker Tracker will finally come through with the Mac version they say is around the bend and I won't need to run windows. We'll see...

Another new development lately is an inordinate amount of misclicks. I'm not talking about the brain fart type misclick. I'm talking about literally my finger is in the wrong spot or I accidentally click the mouse as it's over the button I did not want. I'm pretty sure it's been because I'm trying to deal with the tech stuff at the same time, so I've been popping in and out of the game. Can't remember it really happening before, but this week it's probably cost me cumulatively a couple buy-ins.

Now, the actual game play? Well, that's been easily worse than the technical issues. Again, there's no point going on and on about how bad I've been running. Nobody cares but me, and I already know. But you probably stopped reading long ago, so it's okay if I indulge myself. I know the memory is selective, but I am fairly certain I have never run like this. So many coolers. For example, I just double checked, and I ran AK into AA six times today. Overall just a real smorgasbord of ways to lose. The poker gods have been downright artistic.

For sure the most frustrated I've ever been with how the cards are falling, but I'm not really disheartened overall. Not the way downswings have gotten to me in the past. I mean, don't get me wrong, it really really sucks. Just a few short days ago I was eyeing mixing some 200NL into the sessions, and suddenly I'm back playing 50NL. That blows. But at this point I know these swings are inevitable, and while I'm certainly not guaranteed one going the other way, if I keep putting in the hands odds are I'll eventually get boom switched. Until then, the only real problem is that it's slower collecting VPP's at 50NL. Cause I wasn't counting on the actual gameplay money anyway. I might have to put in more time to get the same bonuses, but I will still get there. And, knock on wood, I won't be at 50NL long enough for it to have much impact at all. But we'll see.

Interestingly, reviewing my last session right now, I only stacked an opponent twice, and I got stacked six times. And of those eight hands total, the two I won were quite clearly the ones I played the worst. Not quite enough evidence to try a George Constanza style opposite approach, but still...