Love / Hate: My relationship with poker

I've been playing poker off and on now for about 10 years. I love the competition, but I hate that poker is one of the few games that you can make all of the right decisions and still lose. Looking back, there is no way that I could consider myself a 'good player.' I played too many hands, and, as a result, lost way more money than I won. But no matter how many times I got my teeth kicked in, I always came back for more.

A few months ago, I felt that I had become pretty good at poker - at least somewhat respectable. I managed to win a fairly significant amount in Las Vegas last year. I left with $400 or so and came back with something like $750. Considering I spent over $100 each on food, drinks, tips, and cabs, that $750 seemed pretty good. (Also, I paid for my hotel and flight after a strong run online.) Then, during this past March, I managed to win . . . much more than that. I can't remember how much I brought, but it was somewhere between $200 and $400. After two 36-hour sessions, I took home a little under $2000. On top of that, I made money at every table that I sat down at. At only one table did I not double up . . . And I missed it by $1.

After this monster run and after graduation, I thought I would try to play as my job. I talked to some people and they suggested I try the casino at Mountaineer in West Virginia. I heard that the tables were cake, but that, apparently, wasn't the case. While there was still the occasional fish, I found the tables to be much tougher than in either Atlantic City or Vegas. After a few trips down, I got my bearings and started to make some money. Unfortunately, it wasn't very much and it certainly didn't justify my 1.5 hour drives down into the hills of South-Eastern Ohio. But I kept plugging along. My reads got better and I thought my play was getting better. And then came the blood bath. Over the course of two trips - and about 6 hands - I lost my entire bankroll. AA vs. KK - (-$300). AA vs. KK vs. JJ - (-$250). Flopped set vs. idiot with top pair vs. guy who got priced in to chase his flush. Etc, etc. The culmination of that came when I played in a freeroll about a month ago. After a decent run that put me in a table lead, I came up with KK against QQ . . . and lost . . . with only one Q left in the deck. It was pretty sick. Online wasn't going much better. I was down to my last $100 of a $500 buy-in. And I pretty much stopped playing. I loved winning, but I was just taking too many beats. As a friend of mine put it, I wasn't have very good "variance." Two weeks ago, I logged in again, played about 20 hands, and immediately logged off. While I didn't lose much - maybe $2 or $3 - I was sick of it. Sick of poker. Sick of losing. Sick of waiting around for big hands.

But then I caught the World Series of Poker on ESPN last week. And I was hooked - almost. I didn't want to put in the massive amounts I was shoving around before. I just didn't want to risk that much. And I didn't want to play cash games anymore. Just let me put in a small amount, know that's as much as I'm going to risk, and then, maybe . . . So, I signed up for $3 tournament that night. And finished 2nd. Out of some 400 people. Winning about $200. (Never mind that I made a terrible play in the first heads-up hand that cost me the tournament . . . ) Today, I finished 13th out of 200. And in another tournament I finished 40th out of about the same number. Oh, I didn't win much money, but it was enough to cover my buy-ins.

For now, I'm back. We'll see for how long. As long as I don't get impatient and play above myself . . . I've never been too good at letting go.