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One of those frustrating mornings that comes along every so often. As I feared, the Citibank branch I have to use for my dollar-denominated ATM card is temporarily shut, making that an unavailable source of funds. I'd managed to go the whole year so far without withdrawing cash from my UK account, but that record had to be broken. Damn.
Thence to the Body Shop, at which I was going to buy a birthday gift pack, excapt that the shop turned out not to be there any more. Liberty's, opposite, seemed to offer a whole range of skincare products, but the second that I walked in there I knew that I had made a mistake. The nearest that I can describe my feeling at the smell and the sight of a battalion of immaculately groomed serving staff would be one of abject panic. And this is not joke-about panic, but the real thing. You can rationally say to me until you are blue in the face "What's the problem? They are used to people like you going up to ask them what products would be suitable." And I can only agree with you, but that doesn't stop the irrational fear. I had to leave immediately.
So, I returned to the office, citibank-less and bodyshop-less, oh, and gym-less. And I didn't remember to go to get my haircut, either. Clearly the visit to the Liberty skincare section had disturbed my train of thought quite seriously, as I just rushed back to the office in some kind of grumpy daze. I hate my weaknesses sometimes. And their blatant irrationality is even more annoying, considering how, at my upper levels of thought, I think extremely unemotionally and logically.
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I've been nicking bits and pieces on currency trading for the past week or so, without building up the bankroll there to anything massive, while still feeling as if my online poker game is a struggle. I looked at the figures and the past two and a half weeks have been plus $80, plus $65, and (this week so far), plus $350. Hardly indicative of "a bad run". But, it "feels" like a bad run. I've already played 6,500 hands this month, and I estimate that I had a $600 hot streak in about two sessions of 90 minutes apiece -- say 700 hands. That means for 5,800 hands I've felt as if I was either running bad or going absolutely nowhere.
Apropos another topic, I believe that Barry Greenstein said that a number of today's good players started off lucky. The positive reinforcement helps the player improve when the luck runs out.
I definitely started out lucky at limit cash (and probably at NL cash) and unlucky at tournaments. I probably play a couple of tournaments a week these days -- far too few to come to meaningful conclusions -- but I still feel that I am unlucky in them. This isn't a case of playing too conservatively and then having to bash it in short-stacked. The bad luck comes at all times, and always at the wrong time. Then, if the big piece of bad luck knocks me out, the rushed attempt to get back into it or go out, invariably leads to the latter.
I daaresay that I have similar runs of bad luck in cash, but, because of earlier positive reinforcement, I can play througbh them, knowing that the sheer volume of hands that I play will see luck even out. I play too few tournaments to be able to be confident of that.
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Thence to the Body Shop, at which I was going to buy a birthday gift pack, excapt that the shop turned out not to be there any more. Liberty's, opposite, seemed to offer a whole range of skincare products, but the second that I walked in there I knew that I had made a mistake. The nearest that I can describe my feeling at the smell and the sight of a battalion of immaculately groomed serving staff would be one of abject panic. And this is not joke-about panic, but the real thing. You can rationally say to me until you are blue in the face "What's the problem? They are used to people like you going up to ask them what products would be suitable." And I can only agree with you, but that doesn't stop the irrational fear. I had to leave immediately.
So, I returned to the office, citibank-less and bodyshop-less, oh, and gym-less. And I didn't remember to go to get my haircut, either. Clearly the visit to the Liberty skincare section had disturbed my train of thought quite seriously, as I just rushed back to the office in some kind of grumpy daze. I hate my weaknesses sometimes. And their blatant irrationality is even more annoying, considering how, at my upper levels of thought, I think extremely unemotionally and logically.
+++++++++++++++
I've been nicking bits and pieces on currency trading for the past week or so, without building up the bankroll there to anything massive, while still feeling as if my online poker game is a struggle. I looked at the figures and the past two and a half weeks have been plus $80, plus $65, and (this week so far), plus $350. Hardly indicative of "a bad run". But, it "feels" like a bad run. I've already played 6,500 hands this month, and I estimate that I had a $600 hot streak in about two sessions of 90 minutes apiece -- say 700 hands. That means for 5,800 hands I've felt as if I was either running bad or going absolutely nowhere.
Apropos another topic, I believe that Barry Greenstein said that a number of today's good players started off lucky. The positive reinforcement helps the player improve when the luck runs out.
I definitely started out lucky at limit cash (and probably at NL cash) and unlucky at tournaments. I probably play a couple of tournaments a week these days -- far too few to come to meaningful conclusions -- but I still feel that I am unlucky in them. This isn't a case of playing too conservatively and then having to bash it in short-stacked. The bad luck comes at all times, and always at the wrong time. Then, if the big piece of bad luck knocks me out, the rushed attempt to get back into it or go out, invariably leads to the latter.
I daaresay that I have similar runs of bad luck in cash, but, because of earlier positive reinforcement, I can play througbh them, knowing that the sheer volume of hands that I play will see luck even out. I play too few tournaments to be able to be confident of that.
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