So I feel like giving you guys a pre SCOOP update on how the past few weeks have been for me and what my plans are for the forseeable future alongside a general chat about where I’m at currently.
So since the month and a bit since I last posted I haven’t actually been playing all that much. This was mainly due to burning out after playing consistently for over two months (Likely 30-40 hours per week). I was still studying poker a decent amount and thinking about ways to exploit the general population which is actually what I enjoy doing most. I’m going to assume (I don’t know for sure) that the part of me burning out was due to a massive downswing which I am still currently on. Think I might be at around 200-300 buy ins currently. Like it’s easy to take this approach “you must be doing something wrong!”. Obviously I’m making mistakes, I review my sessions a lot and there are spots I still make mistakes in and overall area’s of my game I need to improve (e.g rejam range MP vs MP), however these kind of downswings are still possible for good winning players. There are top MTT pro’s who have been on 400-500 buy in downswings. Which is why a lot of full time pros have 1000+ buy ins for the games they play and a seperate life roll. It happens and that’s part of the sick variance in MTTs, especially on stars. Just on the flip side about how you can have people who bink consistently for six months playing a decent sample who are still losing players in the long run.
However, it’s easy to use this as a crutch to stand on and just say “It’s just run bad Tom, it’ll happen don’t worry”. But it’s in this time especially where I’ve really looked into my game and tried to figure out what I need to work on. Part of gaining a solid edge in MTTs is by having a strong mental game and I feel that this period of time has made me grow a lot as a person both inside and outside of poker. I think for at least the first part of my downswing I was just in this limbo where I felt I didn’t have to change anything and that a bink would be around the corner. I felt that I’ve woke up and am just going out there every session to play the best poker I can.
I guess I’ll now go onto my goals for SCOOP where I’m playing seven events. My goals are:
1) To sleep 8 hours a night minimum
2) To go for a run the morning of every event
3) To adjust sleep schedule to cater for playing into the early hours (pre goal and something to maintain during)
4) To not play any other tables when I’m in a SCOOP event (not really a goal, just more of an outlined rule).
5) To spend time looking up players on tables and forming constructive notes.
6) Not to rush myself, I don’t need to be insta clicking the fold checkbox, think.
7) Don’t try anything new, have faith in my own ability and try and play my best.
8) To have an informative, well structured rail.
Now there’s a reason I haven’t put down “cash in a SCOOP event” or “make a profit for my investors” and it’s because it’s a variance based goal which I can’t control. It would be a waste of time and definitely -ev if I made those kind of goals.
Ever since joining 101 I’ve always been myself, I’ve always tried to be honest and speak my mind. Some of you may hate me, and that’s fine but this whole blog is just about me speaking my mind and giving my thoughts on poker and life.
I don’t deserve anything, I’m not due anything. I could completely brick SCOOP and not even make it past hour four in any tournament, does that mean I played badly? Of course not. I could bink the first event I play, does that mean I played well, of course not. The problem in my eye’s it’s that people almost naturally correlate having a winning session/series with playing well and a losing session/series with playing badly. And deep down we know that’s not the case.
Let’s chuck a hypothetical example out there.
#101rungood -> Labax FT SCOOP-05-L
“Going in 5/9 LFG”
“Jesus this is huge, one time for #101”
“Railing now OMG”
“3 Way Chop Tom 1/3 atm”
“He took it down sickkkkkkk”
There would be a twitter post maybe a few RT’s and there would likely be posts like “GG WP, super sicko” “Sick one Tom, this was always around the corner for you” “well deserved, gg”.
And being brutally honest, I don’t want to hear any of this kind of stuff. It breeds overconfidence. This may turn even more of you against me but again, these are just my views.
Now some of you might be thinking “We’re just a community supporting eachother and we’re celebrating the fact that someone did really well”.
Okay, but you know what I’d like to hear. “What are you going to spend the money on” “How do you feel” “You have to come to the next 101meetup now, no excuse!” “Mind if you go through the hand history with me some time”. That, to me, is a better way of supporting individuals and making them feel included within a community.
What I like about this site is the community. A lot of you seem like nice, normal people who want to improve at the game. You know what I wish. I wish the main talking points weren’t based around how people have ran in the short term. I’d rather get to know people on a more personal level and talk about spots and hands more than just having everything revolve around results. Yes this is a poker forum and maybe I’m in the completely wrong mind set here but again, this is what I would like in an ideal world.
What are my plans for the forseeable future? To keep trying to improve and play when I feel like playing. I want to also spend time playing more chess, running more and getting ready for my degree which I start in September.
Well there you go, I’m aware no one has posted on this yet but I’m sure a lot of you have viewed/skimmed/read some if not all of this. I’m not encouraging you to post, that’s not what this is about. If you do have any questions which you don’t want to ask on here but you still want to hear what I think about something, feel free to PM me, it can be completely private between you and me.
I have around 15% of SCOOP action left to sell if any of you are interested.
I’m not sure when I’ll update this next. I guess whenever I feel like it’s the right time.
Comments Stace:
nice post Tom. A lot of what you have said is valuable stuff.
I think though, even though your right and we shud be focusing on poker as a long term thing the short term is just as important imo.
Encouragement and praise when a player runs deep or hits a one off score or whatever can never be a bad thing. I don’t think it breeds over confidence.
Some players need that boost and need that encouragement so I think we should always be looking to do that.
Your thought process around every game is interesting I.e what you will do before each game etc I never look into it that far haha.
Anyway Gl in SCOOP hope u crush!
Comments Kitch:
Totally agree with stace here its nothing to do with breeding over confidence its purely all members supporting 1 another and praising you for doing well which imo is a nice boost that people are actually acknowledging how well you played and simply saying well done, i mean if you got an ft in scoop what would you think if nobody bothered to put a rungood tread up or congratulate you on the win? Good post though and keep doing what your doing and it will come 
Reply from Labax:
Yeah agree with both of you, it’s a pretty cynical line to take on my part. It can definitely provide a boost and is a completely valid way of a community getting behind eachother. It definitely improves the overall vibe of the SB/threads etc.
I’m still going to be a tiny bit cynical and bring up a small(ish) point. Apologies in advance?
“its purely all members supporting 1 another and praising you for doing well which imo is a nice boost that people are actually acknowledging how well you played”
My point about overconfidence is here. Just because someone binked something doesn’t mean they played well. All you have to do is look at some of the hot/big final tables (especially the cards up sunday ones) and see how many people self implode with seven left and get there and then end up winning the tournament by playing pretty poorly. If someone is surrounded by WPs, GG sicko’s and whatever else people do, they’re going to think they played well, because they won/FT’d etc, which I think everyone knows, isn’t always the case. They may think they’re better then their current ability “I guess I am pretty good”, this happens all the time (It even happened with tonkaaa, when he was 18 “this poker game is so easy man” and then he realised he was actually awful and spent years working his ass off to improve). This could easily lead people to overestimate their ability and move up stakes etc which would cause them to lose more money in the long run. I think it definitely can breed overconfidence if not combined with some sort of constructive feedback. (Let’s go over the HH on TV etc). If anything I think a mixture of both encouragement and constructive feedback is an ideal mix.
I could say something about trying to be emotionally balanced with both winning and losing but I appreciate for pretty much everyone that’s pretty hard to do. It’s going to feel pretty good to bink and pretty bad to brick 20 MTTs on Sunday even though that’s out of our control.
Plus the buzz and motivation from winning can make people work even harder (when brought around in the right way).