DANGERLION

As some of you may have deduced from Ariel’s blog, we are down a staggering amount of money since arriving in Vegas (and were down a decent chunk before Vegas), making this run that we are all on as a group and individually the biggest downswing each of us has ever had (and I had a REALLY big one last year).  To top that, it’s all captured in its glory on camera.  The RailHeaven games that are going on FTP are hands down the softest 6max games running anywhere on the Internet, but we have run so bad in them historically going into yesterday, and then just defecated on any preconceived notions of what running bad in those games meant yesterday.  We took a 500k shot at it and lost most of it throughout the course of the day, and now all of us are nearly online busto (we can still play 5/10 – 25/50 individually, but I mean too busto to play nosebleeds at the moment).

So what does this mean for the tv show?  It looks like we will be given a few days off from shooting poker, and then come back early next week and start over at 5/10 and 10/20 and 25/50NL so the numbers are more reasonable and so we will actually (hopefully?) win some money.  I think this is a really good decision for the sake of the show – I’m sure they won’t trash the footage of us playing super high, because that kind of stuff is really interesting…  but to have a show centered on a group of 4 friends getting beat down over and over and slowly losing their minds is kinda against the spirit of the idea.

What does this mean for the 4 of us as poker players?  I can’t speak for everyone but I know Ariel and I are moving way down in stakes.  We both just have far less money than we used to and having any more big losing days right now would make us feel much worse than a big winning day would make us happier.  I hadn’t been playing much poker before this… whereas earlier in the year I would sit at empties daily waiting for action, for numerous reasons for the past cpl months I’ve only been playing when games have been running.  I think that trend will likely continue when I leave Vegas as I seem to prefer to spend my time lately, regardless of upswings or downswings, coaching and working on/for/around/inside DeucesCracked.

I was lucky enough to receive some sage advice from two different sources recently.  The first was from Tommy, and he said:

Now, as to your September challenge, to write “better” blog posts, I think what you might want to try doing there is instead of telling yourself that you are going to think outside the box, just ask yourself – what box?  Who even needs a box to be outside of?  Doesn’t acknowledging the box at all have the effect of confining me somehow to it?   Then smoke a mongo fatty and start typing. 

The second was from a DC member named Alexander, who is a playwright.  I PMed him asking some questions about moving into a career in writing, and he was kind enough to send me a book of a response, of which the following is excerpted from:

Write every day. Start today: not less then 30 minutes, not more then an hour. Keep it simple in the beginning, just grab the stuff coming to your your imagination and put it on paper. No editing, no censorship. Strictly dialogue, of course. This, amigo, is your ueber-plan: a) write every day b) die. 

September 13, 2008.

I have begun.