the little things

Up until tonight January has been pretty crappy. My motivation has been low, I haven't been playing much as I've been too busy swilling this awesome scotch bar that I bought myself for Christmas, delving deeply into gourmet beers, and basically eating like a king from the Medieval Ages.

I played 4 or 5 session in the first ten days of the new year, quietly donking off a hundred or two a session (except for a nice little win at the 5/10 LHE tables- that was fun. Limit Holdem is a great, great game sometimes.).

Today I got straightened out. Instead of lounging around per the norm I actually made it to the gym after my morning smoothie, had a nice work out, got a balanced meal and all that, took my vitamins, some Piracetam, and I think most importantly- I really cleaned off my desk. All those nasty little smudges and piles of sticky tobaccoe and weed fragments- I saved the weed fragments obviously, but I really scoured the area and made my situation as nice as possible. I played a nice 42 game session in an excellent mood - hardly screaming at all - and capped what would have been just an okay night with a very welcome 4th place finish in the 23k K.O. tourney for just over 2k.

Mission accomplished. (except for the obvious failure at clinching the 23k- but if I really want to pursue that line of reasoning than I might as well be bitter that I didn't win every single tournament I played tonight.)

The lesson is- and it's a lesson I know but don't follow often enough- everything counts in poker. Poker is a Meta-Game of sorts. Every detail matters, even though sometimes none of it does. It's BIG like that.

And to really optimize your playing and profit making experience, take the time to set the stage. For me I've realized that this means getting some exercise. I find that my emotions are more balanced and my thinking is more clear after a work out. I'm also tangibly "more awake," which is huge when multi tabling because you have to make a lot of important decisions very quickly sometimes, and your information is often of an esoteric nature at best. Every little detail adds up at the poker table and the quicker and more efficiently you can take it in the better obviously.

I haven't gotten around to making my New Years goals yet, but you can believe that they're going to be more focused on maintaining my attitude and dedication and overall well-being more than they will be about winning some X amount of $.