Beats, Brags, Variance and Goals

Well so far the storm I had planned for April / May has been more of a shower. My goal of unlocking all 60 cards in the VIP500 promotion earlier this month was doomed from the start. I started well, grinding close to the required 1500 points for the first couple of days. However, traffic on the party network has been declining this year and it soon became apparent that I wasn't able to get in enough volume during daytime hours, resulting in me changing my schedule to play mainly at peak times (between 4pm and midnight UK time). This was also doomed to failure as there are far too many distractions in the evening to lure me away from poker, resulting in me trying to make up the hours between 12 and 4am when the games are also dead. All round a pretty bad idea!

 

Beat

Unfortunately poker has also been taking a back seat to real life. In the last few weeks I had a friend's stag do, his wedding, a wedding shower (for my fiance), a couple of family birthdays, a meeting with our wedding planner, buying our wedding rings, the list goes on! Of course I could have made my apologies and skipped some of these events, but one of the best things about being a poker player is having the flexibility to make time for friends and family. Of course the flexibility of being a poker player is both a gift and a curse. It's easy to blame external events but really it's my responsibility to build a proper routine and find time to put the hours in.

Brag
On the plus side I finally hit 100,000 points which means I can unlock the $20k bonus from the WPT store. Until now most of the rakeback I have earned this year has been tied up in these points so it will be nice to finally see some of the cash monies. I was also lucky enough to win a free iPad 2 in the VIP500 promotion which should be delivered this week. I'm incredibly excited about this as I've always wanted a tablet but never really been able to justify the cost. Now that it's on it's way I've already made a list of about 30 that I want apps for it. Oops, another distraction from poker!

Variance
When I have been playing I've been enjoying some swings. In the last 4 weeks at the tables I quickly lost $1.5k, then had a nice $5.5k upswing followed swiftly by a $3.5k downswing. All pretty much par for the course when I'm playing so many (super) turbos with a high rake and plenty of regs for company. After rakeback and bonuses I'm still up about $4 or $5k so no complaints.

Goals
I find that I work best under pressure, when I have clear goals with tangible outcomes and rewards. In order to clear the $20k bonus I need to grind another 25,000 WPT points. So my aim is to do that by the 16th of June, grinding approx. 6000 points per week. This will be tough but definitely achievable. The only problem is that (you guessed it) I have a lot on in the next few weeks with my own stag do, my fiance's 21st birthday and, oh yeah, a wedding 6 weeks away! Still, as an incentive if I do manage it I'll be rewarding myself with a TV for the bedroom, which would be pretty sweet.

Here's hoping you run good (unless you're at my table).

David