Warning: Not a happy upbeat post.

Downswing.

Okay, so, despite not checking results, I feel this downswing has hit $100k (you kinda get a round-about feeling of what you are losing, when you are losing it).

My first 6 figure downswing. It feels draining. I suspect if it wasn't over such a large period of time it wouldn't feel quite so bad. I imagine it would be more of a shocking feeling. But this is dragging.

Today I played a short session after a day of revising for exams. It went pretty horribly. In fact results went okay at 10/20 just got killed at 25/50. I think I played very well. I especially made a very good bluff for stacks which didn't work out this time, but I really like it.

The point of this post isnt to dissect any hands. I believe I play very well on the whole. In fact the only point of this post is to moan, so if you don't wanna read about it then i'd stop about now.

This downswing is the biggest I have ever had I'd estimate by around $30kish. The thing is though, it's come at probably the worst time in my life. Admittedly I am now doing a degree so haven't got that pro-poker feel of, "oh shit, i'm awful at what i do, how am i gonna eat next week/month/year" - and you do think that, even if you see people making textbook errors, over and over again. I have maybe a positive to look at, if it doesn't work out (basically if variance kicks me in the balls more times than anyone in the history) then I have something to fall back on.

It's the worst time for me because of a few things. I have exams coming up which I need to revise for relatively well in order to pass with a decent mark. I am looking at houses to buy within the next couple of months. It's hard to imagine parting with a large amount of cash when your net worth is constantly going down. I'm also deferring a year from uni. In which I have to support myself of course by playing poker.

I do have until the summer, however, June is going to be such a hectic month I think I'll struggle to get over 20k hands played. I have exams which I mentioned. The world cup, which is unmissable for a young football fan. It's essentially some of the best times you can have. I also have the end of university 2nd year and football tour which are of similar status.

One of the worst things about a downswing (surprisingly far behind losing hundreds of thousands of dollars) is telling people. People know I play poker which is great, I don't mind sharing when people wanna hear (perhaps even the odd time when they don't when i'm blackout drunk? unsure on that). When someone asks my results and I tell them I lost again. They will ask why etc in an inquisitive way (EDIT: I will add, most of my good friends and family are great with this and totally understand.. wow that's a lot of brackets for one paragraph). I will say every time bad luck, variance, whatever. I sound like a degenerate that is using standard logic to defend his/her bad decisions. The funny thing is when on a brutal downswing you begin to wonder if you are in fact that degenerate. You begin to wonder if you have an edge at all.

I feel like I should wrap this up cos it's closing in on the word count for some of my report works from business this year, and that's really quite sad.

In order to end this on a positive note, though; I'm not that degenerate and I do have an edge.

Gl.

Rob.

EDIT 2: Just finished writing and It felt good to write it. I guess this is what it's here for. Realised when friends are complaining of stress levels regarding work and exams that I really have quite a lot to be stressed about, but relatively i'm not. I'm never really in a bad mood or put little things off that I have to do. I guess this is a [really] good thing.