Upswing into Spring? Please?

Hey all! Thanks for the warm welcome into the blogging world. I was pretty nervous submitting my first blog. I was a little concerned the reaction would be similar to the classic scene from a movie where the character has all their dreams tied up into their goal of being a professional comedian. They work for weeks on their material only to get on stage, be blinded by the light, forget all their lines, and be booed off the stage, tripping over the power cord on their way out. Only in my vision, I wrote and submitted a blog, only to wake up the next morning to 72 nasty comments and an email from CardRunners saying I'm no longer welcome on their site. They are letting me submit blog # 2 and so far nobody has told me to die in a grease fire, so I guess that's good?

Poker has been a bit crazy for me lately. I started the year with the most brutal downswing I've ever had in my career. It's done some serious damage to my bankroll and has shaken my confidence a bit. I decided it would be best for me to take a break from the high-stake games to get my confidence and bankroll back in order. I am hoping this downswing will someday be a blessing in disguise because it has given me some added incentive to work on my tournament game, as thus far in my career I have focused almost all of my energy on cash games. I really think I'm well-suited to play tournaments, especially live events. As a female, players tend to react differently to me and it's usually fairly easy for me to identify that and react accordingly. Of course there are exceptions, but in my experience, men have a tendency to severely underestimate my abilities at the poker table. They generally either believe I'm completely incapable of bluffing and they fold everything to me, or they vow to themselves they'll never be bluffed off a hand by a woman, and they call me down crazy light. It's always nice to be underestimated. I think this gives me a pretty big edge in live games and I hope I have lots of future opportunities to exploit it. Since November of 2010 I've played three big buy-in live tournaments and cashed in one. I'd be pretty happy if I could keep that pace! One very well respected tournament player who I've been seated with twice at big tournaments told me he was so impressed with my game he was bragging to his friends that he found the next "female superstar." I really hope he's right! Hopefully the bankroll will allow me to play lots of WSOP events this summer and I can make it happen. J

In the meantime I've been playing lots of 2/4 RUSH on FTP. You'd think playing 2/4 would be less stressful than 25/50, but four tabling rush leads to some crazy swings. I'm still learning what does and doesn't work in that game but so far I'm enjoying it, and it's a good cure for my short attention span since there's so much action. I'm sure at some point I'll get sick of RUSH and return to my regular six max games, but the break has been nice and at this point I'm not really in any hurry to change gears again.

The current downswing I'm on probably shouldn't come as a surprise. It seems that pretty much every single year I go on a downswing from Jan-March, then get hot in early summer and dig my way out of it. I have no idea if this is just pure coincidence or if my pissy mood during the late stages of winter alters my play in a negative way. It's so hard to stay upbeat while living in Minnesota during this time. When that first snowfall comes in October or November I'm usually like "okay, I'm not a huge fan, but this isn't so bad and it's kind of pretty." Then, in December I tell myself I can tolerate the snow because it makes for a festive Christmas. Once the holidays are over, I really can't think of a single good thing about the fluffy stuff. I spend my winter hibernating in my house with the heat cranked up. I laugh at the idea of using the snow for entertainment purposes. Ice-fishing? Skiing? Snowmobiling? HA! "I'll take no chance in hell for $500, Alex.' I know it seems a simple solution would be to pick up and move somewhere sunny and warm but it's not quite that easy. This year my husband and I actually seriously considered moving to Vegas, but we opted to stick around here for the time being for various reasons. My three year old son is the only grandchild on both my side, and my husband's side of the family. For his grandparents, the sun rises, and sets with him. I hate the thought of taking him away from the family who adores him so much. Plus, my husband is finishing up his schooling right now and it would be a very inconvenient time for him to move anywhere. I won't rule out a move somewhere in the future, but for now, I'm just going to curse my ancestors for settling down here and count the days until the snow melts and I have the privilege of seeing green grass again!

Thanks for reading! I'm going to quite procrastinating and get back to the grind....hope you all are running well in life and in cards!!!!

Danielle