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Insomniacs Dream Too

Posted by Alex Fitzgerald on February 27, 2012 · Leave a Comment

-$10K on the weekend or something. Fun. See, drop out of school kids! Poker is fun and easy!

I played bad in a few spots, but for the most part I can excuse myself. I just had one of those weekends where I couldn’t hit water if I fell out of a boat. Well, except for in my house, where I ran into actual water.

As if God wanted to give me a sign that moving from this house was a great idea this pipe burst in my yard. To make things more fun I’d just gotten done dropping a deuce in my bathroom, and the broken waterway made it so that I couldn’t flush. All of this was going on during Sundays.

The smell of a flooding system didn’t go away from my bathroom even after the burst pipe was sealed.

The owner of the house has no been to my place more times in the last three days then she was here for the year plus I was living here. She also likes to show up right in the middle of my sessions, unannounced, yelling at me from the street to open the door, because she forgot/lost here keys.

She’s telling people that look at the house all the same things I was told “oh I’m going to build a wall here for security, I’ll clear out this part of the neighbor’s yard for your view, it will all get taken care of.” I didn’t know how to drop this guy a subtle hint.

My girlfriend and I have taken apart the larger furniture, put everything in boxes, put everything by the door. Now we just gotta arrange the move. They weren’t done cleaning my new place yet so we put off moving for a day. Then my girlfriend realized she packed my passport in with a box that was already at the new place, so we had to take a trip there this morning. Man, what difference does a day or two make of cleaning. The place looked so good, and squashed any remaining doubts I had.

For the first time in my life I showed some risk analysis when picking a place to live, and I actually was squeemish signing another lease and dropping first and last month’s rent. This is not normal for me. I usually find some realtor to take advantage of my stupid foreigner ass and give me the most overpriced glossed-over space in the city, and fork over enough to put a down payment on a real house. I’ve rented…let me count…fourteen different places since I turned 18 (I’m 24 now), between Korea, Malta, Seattle, and San Jose. That’s not including Vegas homes or any month-long residence for poker. That’s signed a lease, shook a hand with a landlord, apartment. It’s not I’m a nomad, just kind of a dumb shit. I’d run up complaints with my neighbors, usually involving my drinking or the smell coming from my room, and then when I pissed off the girl I was living with at the time thoroughly I’d bail, because, nothing a new city can’t cure. You don’t have to think when no one around you can ask you questions in your language.

I finally feel on my game. I’m glad I haven’t lived with my girlfriend here in Costa Rica, because I realize now that’s a little too much exposure when you’re coming to understand a person’s rhythms. I also wouldn’t have wanted her to watch me detoxing for a year. Yeah, a whole damn year, I mean the last four months were just like someone was pinching a nerve, but I still woke up with it, had to shake my head hard in the morning to get over it. Probably why I run so much, runner’s high supplements everything.

Thank Jesus for my Seroquel. I heard an addiction medicine specialist refer to it as a tranquilizer. He said me smoking for years was me trying to manufacture the tranquilizing counteraction this drug accomplishes much more efficiently. You know, I love my work, I love working on a project all hours, but that same feeling makes it really difficult to sleep at nights. I think a lot of poker players feel like this. When it’s time to turn off that mind at nights it’s really hard for us. We got good at what we love thinking all the time, not because we want to, but because we have to. Then when it’s time to shut it down, or calm down enough to understand a player who is just starting to play poker, that’s where the difficulty comes in. I mean I have no problem telling people I was a chainsmoker and drinker, because I know most poker players are close to that, and that’s most of the people I talk to. I just opened my Facebook and it was “I was so drunk I missed a day 2″ and then this guy did his first status update in two years, after he blew 300k with his friend when they both got stoned and decided to split action on 200/400. I’m not judging at all, we’re addictive personalities, that stuff is going to happen, you just gotta laugh at it and move on and be more focused. It’s just a trip when you’re trying to get your things together and you realize a lot of your friends who didn’t get it together…well…they’re kind of messed up financially, or living at their Mom’s. Suburban failure. Hell, I messed up big time, I’ve just been lucky enough to have people help me bounce back. But you can’t depend on that. I’m a two time lottery winner just to have that bounce back after the fortune was blown, to have that support when it wasn’t necessarily built in early on.

But yeah I’ve been feeling like I’m really in balance with my meds. Before I couldn’t sleep, then I’d be aching mentally all day, strung out. Then I could sleep like a baby when I started taking my meds, but I’d end up sleeping for 12 hours and being slow as hell some days. Now I sleep eight hours like a baby, and wake up running to do the first things on my list. I’m getting a lot done, and it feels good.

I’m just trying to cut out all the things that slow down. I’m just a total lightweight with everything, and that’s taken a while to get used to. Like yeah it’s fun to have some drinks with my friends, but the next day I can’t work at all. It’s nice to have a smoke but then I end up depending on it, my body can’t take it and move on.

The annoying thing is now is that the more I go without these things, and just drink juice, eat fish, and rice and beans…the less of a tolerance my body seems to have. Beer at a business lunch, I’m crap for four hours. Big business lunch, I’m crap for four hours. I just was practically in a food coma from one burger from Burger King and an iced tea. Man, I used to live off of super size meals. I’d start my days in Malta with a full pizza. I’d go to sleep in Korea after a full Soju and eating Korean BBQ for hours, so yeah, it’s just weird to have this now. The more I pay attention to what I eat, and pretty much cut it out with every vice except for caffeine though, the more my energy level goes up. The more I talk to my awesome set of students the more excited I get for the game. They got so many questions about hands I played, so I can’t just butcher a hand without a reason now, I gotta defend my theories with some good critics.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. People don’t believe me when I say this, but I was falling asleep at my Sunday Million final table. I just checked out, I don’t know. But you gotta fake it till you feel it. I get way more into an 11r Action Hour final table then I used to get into much bigger final tables. I know the money’s going somewhere useful now, and my friends get me hyped up. They’re all about that grind. Watching them play teaches me a ton too. You get to learn about what other strengths they see in their competition, what other lines they like to take, what other logic they use. I’ve always been in my own little bubble, and I could kick myself for that now. The guys who have taken over poker the last five years always came in teams, Durr and Galfond for instance, just bouncing hands back and forth.

Sometimes I get back in my old habits of, “I don’t care about this man I just want to grind and go home.” But I gotta make an effort to drop that. I gotta get into it, surround myself with my craft. I’ve never cared about other players before. You can’t learn anything from that though. You have to watch other HHs. I went from not watching another player’s hand history in years to watching literally hundreds of full tournaments over the last two years. Big players, complete newbies, all of them, I want to try to understand all of them. I’m really still struggling with a lot of things that weigh on my mind, but I can see a huge difference in my game from even six months ago, and that’s a great start. I was playing terrible, TERRIBLE, after Black Friday, and truthfully before I probably was one of the many countless regs who saw their profits increased tenfold by the 130 million of Full Tilt funny money. I’m going to choose to be appreciative of Full Tilt crumbling, because it’s going to make me a much more grateful and smart grinder.

I want to crack Pocketfives top 100 for the first time. I’ve never ever cared about the rankings, I don’t think I’ve ever even read into how their made, but I got respect for the guy’s at the top of the leaderboard now. I’ve been becoming more a fan of poker the last couple years, now that I’m going over so many hands with my students, and just trying to learn more about the game and love it more. Paying attention to some of these guys rocking the leaderboards is so good for your game. My favorite cat to watch is Bananazoo. Watching Bananazoo play is like “daaaamn”, that kid’s just right so often. Guy’s got sick rhythm and drive. Always such a pain in the ass at the tables, and I mean…I don’t get frustrated often. I respect and give up bets when I have to, but Bananazoo will make you legit pull out your hair. Then there’s guys like Naza114 or what little I’ve seen of Flush Entity. I’m sure they have their private frustrations and battles, but you can’t tell at the tables. They just put in work, seemingly all day every day, and you never see their game struggle under their work load. They’re just all about their work seemingly.

When you watch the real grinders work you realize how much of this game is just talk and a sea of random regs trying to separate themselves with their egos and boasting their one-off scores. It’s hard to stay in this for a long time. You think of who was top 50 a year ago, a year before, a year before that, the names change a lot. I’m sure a lot of them are just appreciating the money they’ve made and taking life slower, but a lot of them just flame out, grind out of their mind till they can’t see straight, or stop caring. I know many of them personally, they’re good guys, but at some point how competitive a job this is wears down a lot of people.

I’ve never really put my all into this. I was always kind of dumbfounded at the money I did make and never really wanted more. Now, I want to prove it to myself I can do it again, after I’ve lost the money a half dozen times. I just can’t let things sit how they are. I can’t accept I made all my money when I was an addict, and blew it all. I can live with myself saying, “a lot of people make mistakes in their teens and early twenties” but that relies on me taking things seriously now.

2012 I got a great start, cashing 70k out the gate with a PCA finish, and then about that much at home online. Got all my makeup paid off and a ton of other things hanging around since Black Friday that were bugging me. Now I’m just trying to iron out EVERYTHING that was bugging me. I was half assing my job and life in general, with this excuse “why should I grind, something else like Black Friday will just happen to me again” or “I shouldn’t upgrade my set up yet.” I kept putting things off to the next day, and then what the hell, half a year’s gone by. I’m trying to blog more frequently to hold myself accountable, to keep this energy up, because damn it’s so easy to half ass things in poker and still make a decent living…until one day everything’s passed you by.

So, first thing was the super secure grind pad. Check. Moving into it will take days, maybe weeks. There’s lots of little things to take care of, installing new high-speed internet, moving 800 boxes, adjusting to the layout, etc. The family who owns the people is really nice, but they lived their for a while with much different amenities than what I want. So they did their laundry a different way, and I actually have a washer and dryer, so I have to install the special plug for the washer. I’m using a different room for an office then they used, so I have to figure out how to get air conditioning in there and other things. All kind of annoying, but it’s nice building up something for your mental stability. A grind solace. Safe. Secure. Spacious. That’s what I want and deserve. That’s going to help me build.

It looked so good today, and they’re not done cleaning. I can’t wait to move in there. Also going to be nice as far as keeping the house clean. My girlfriend’s aunt helps me out, but I have to compensate her for the two hour commute she has going to my old residence. In the new place she can come more often, help me with meals while I’m playing, and there won’t be any dog messes to clean up since my poodle will have an outside area to run around and live in, an area he can’t escape from. Right now, my girlfriend’s aunt can’t come that often, so I end up cleaning the house myself a lot, and I could be using those hours more wisely. I can’t let my dog run around outside because he keeps escaping into the road, and he gots all anxious inside and starts chewing on something I inevitably have to clean up. So ready to be done with that.

The other thing I’m working on tomorrow besides moving is getting a new passport. I want to see my Dad’s family in Brazil sometime in the next couple months, and Brazil’s supposed to be especially nasty about the condition of US Passports. I’m proud of my passport, but it’s gone with me through 30-40 countries or something, and most of the time just getting it’s weak dated cover bent up in my jeans pocket. When the threading started coming undone border officials started threatening me with not letting me in. I blame Asian countries for always randomly arresting white people who don’t have their passport on them. Probably wore it out more than it needed to be.

Anyway, I’d have to renew it in a couple years anyway, so I’m going to get a new one and take care of this passport this time.

Then there’s getting the new monitor, getting money on new accounts, getting my Moneybookers transfer limits up, getting enrolled in school here, getting utility bills in my name finally, and yeah a hundred other things. I’m hoping I can get the majority of them done in the next month so the rest of 2012 I can just spend studying and working my ass off at poker in peace.