It Hurts

I hurt all over. My head hurts, my mind hurts, my spirit hurts. My stomach aches and turns and threatens to expel its contents whenever I think of the repeated beatings I've taken over the last three days. My eyes stare straight ahead in disbelief and I turn on music to try and drown out the sound of my own self depracating thoughts. I try not to cry like a girl. I ball my fists and wish I had a punching bag, like Ryan on the O.C. when he wanted to beat that surfer guy's ass, but had to keep his rage under control unless he wanted to get kicked out of school again.

I look at the wall where I kicked the hole and patched the hole and remember what anger cost me the last time.

I get in my car and escape into a movie to get off tilt. I eat lunch, buy a shirt, and watch the sun dip into the water. I breathe deep and drive home in the twilight, ready to begin again.

Only to walk straight into another punch. And fall flat on my back again.

This was my weekend, kids. Just skip this section if another bad beat story is gonna make you throw up as much as I want to right now:

- AA called down by 44 who hits runner runner straight.

- JJ vs. 66. He flops quad sixes.

- Queens full of aces goes down to quad aces.

- AA cracked by K5.

- KK cracked by 56.

- AA cracked by 77 turning quads.

- Two enormous inflection point tournament pots where I reraise a short-stack all-in from position, once with 99, once with JJ only to have the BB wake up with Aces.

Here's the thing that I really hate about bad beats. It's not the part where some assclown sucks out and makes off with all the chips I just worked so hard to get. I know the assclown will lose in the long run. I wasn't born yesterday. It's that it turns me into a pussy. I get scared. I play too freakin' tight. There are monsters around every corner. That spade made his flush. That king made her straight. If I had balls, they'd have shrunken up so far that they're never coming back down.

I thought I had worked out a lot of stuff when it came to my play. Refining play from the blinds, taking more advantage of position, pushing the smaller edges further. I even started winning a little again. I felt OK. Then 10 tournaments straight with zero cashes. Three bad cash sessions in a row. I looked at my PokerTracker and saw that I haven't won a cash pot bigger than $6 with AA since mid-October. AKs and AQs are overall losers for me. Whine whine whine. I'm already starting to regret this post but why censor honesty? Eh, fuck it.

This downswing just couldn't come at a worse time. I need dough for Vegas. And I need a serious injection of some self-confidence if I'm going to be able to stand up to all these bloggers on the felt. I already know I'm pretty much out of my depth (just check out Pauly's leaderboard to witness my utterly embarrassing performance in those tourneys). And I'm looking at the trip as more of a big fuckin' party with some poker hands in between drinks. I'd just like to not end up broke in the process. Jason Spaceman has been going through some similar stuff. I feel your pain, bro.

I swear I'll be back to my regularly scheduled snarkiness soon. Maybe once I win a SNG or something.