There must be something that biochemically changes in my brain when enduring a long car or plane ride (more so on car rides because I'm not worried about any time sound change likely signaling a plane crash in my mind). I just got back from visiting a few of my long time best friends in Arizona. In the midst of my ride home, I asked myself some of the following questions:
What happens if my car breaks down and a violent dust storm erupts for 3 days?
Why do we think that other intelligent civilizations in the universe would even be able to build spaceships?
If aliens came from a barren, desert planet, wouldn't Las Vegas or an Arizona type climate be the first place they would try to land?
If the Twitter generation takes over, are people ever going to talk to each other again?
Will text messages eventually become obsolete just like so many other forms of communication have in the past?
and most importantly as related to the blog,
Why did I not win another huge tournament this month?
The answers flooded my mind with all sorts of words popping into my mind; fatigue, focus, skill, luck, real estate, stocks, money, pressure, competition, rigged, etc. Those floods of words were enough to answer the question in and of themselves. My mind just needs more breaks.
Truth be told, I had a unbelievable month in poker in June, took most of July off with a few tiny tournament and cash game sessions, and have come back to Vegas in August to probably my worst month in my poker career. I've engulfed myself in trying to better understand the real estate market here for my first home purchase while simultaneously studying options trading strategies and attempting to put them into practice. All in the meantime, I still have to focus and worry about my actual primary source of income, poker HELLO!!!
I've talked in the past about meditation and how a book titled The Joy of Living has driven me to practice meditation. I practiced several of the exercises in this book throughout April-May-June and made a point to meditate during the World Series of Poker on breaks, after tournaments, etc. My meditation has since been non-existent, while in the meantime, all I'm doing from 6:30am-roughly 9-10PM is immersing my mind with new data points, information, numbers, and strategies involving all 3 of the tasks I'm trying to accomplish. These all add up to a poor month.
I'd like to also throw in a little disclaimer as well in that it's almost impossible in the short run of poker to determine how much luck is playing a role in the results, so 20 days of a month doesn't tell much. When it comes down to it though, there have been days where I knew I was simply too inundated with information and not putting my mind in poker 100%. You can't win online nowadays doing that.
So going forward, the WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) starts Sept 2nd-Sept 20th. Historically in this event (2 years), I have 0 final tables. I do have two final two table finishes and a 30 something place in the 7200 person event last year. I won't be playing every event in this series, but plan on playing as many as possible.
Focus and success coincide with a mind that is clear from distraction and free to innovate on its own.
