My views on blogs appear to change daily. On the surface, they seem awfully vain and self-indulgent, but they’re also surprisingly therapeutic in terms of exhaling those aches and pains the poker world brings. I have so far veered away from blowing the dust off ‘Snoopy System’ and resurrecting my nonsensical musings, but having randomly looked over my blog recently, I realised that there was another incentive I’d overlooked.
Blogs shouldn’t be written for others, but for yourself. They provide an historical account of your progress through life, and I think it’s important to keep a diary so you can look back and reflect on previous thoughts. Blogs can be nostalgic, and remind you of moments you’d previously forgotten, but they seem to put things into perspective and serve as a reminder that the decisions you think are so definitely right now, are not necessary the most appropriate paths to take. Of course, it’s nice when people offer compliments on your latest post, or when traffic stats suggest you’re a popular read, but blogs shouldn’t be based solely on soaking up applause.
For me, the Pre-Grading is a perfect time to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Over the last few months I’ve been playing on Black Belt Poker and accrued enough points to reach Green Belt status, but I’d very much like to reach Blue Belt without having to claw my way up to the required 50,000 Belt Points target. I think the powers that be are currently deciding whether or not I should be allowed to participate due to my role in the company, but with contributions, table-hours and profit/loss mostly quantative, I think the Grading is open enough to allow me to play without raising suspicions of bias if I were to win an Irish Open seat.
As a Green Belt, I don’t have to do the Grading Selection week, but I want to embrace the challenge nevertheless to show myself that I can do it, and others that it is possible despite working full-time. Luckily, I have a slight advantage in that I multi-table up to 12 tables, which means I could potentially complete the Pre-Grading in just several hours. At the same time, however, I feel that my game is hampered when I play that many tables, so seeing as I also want to turn a profit, I will be playing eight tables simultaneously, likely split into three sessions of 3-hours 20-minutes. Although I think the $0.25/0.50 stakes will be more profitable, I’m going to stick with my usual $1/2 as I am used to the standard and have a tonne of hand histories on my opponents. I’m also comfortably up in those games.
I’m blogging for Blue Square at the Bolton GUKPT from Friday to Sunday, so fitting in the hands won’t be easy, but I think I can squeeze them into the first half of the week and have my hand histories shipped off to BBP HQ by Thursday evening. It’s going to be tough, but I want to add discipline to my game and also challenge myself to see if I am capable of completing the Pre-Grading. I think it will also reveal some things about my game and hopefully enable me to plug leaks that are undoubtedly preventing me from reaching the next level.
At this point, I would like to wish the other Pre-Graders the very best of luck next week and return quickly to my initial question: why am I kick-starting my blog? Well, to summarise, I want to put my thoughts on paper and detail my progress through the Grading, not for others, but for myself. Naturally, I hope people find the blog interesting and get something out of it that will help their own game, but, like secret diaries, blogs shouldn’t be dependent on an audience, otherwise they become a vehicle for bad beats, brags and dishonesty. I want mine to be the opposite, an honest account that I can look back in a year’s time with objectivity and deduce whether I achieved what I set out to do, or whether I fell flat on my face. Poker’s a seesaw battle, but if there are more highs and lows, then what’s the point? An old timer that I used to play with packed up poker recently after dedicating most of his life to it and said, “I can’t believe I wasted so many years on the game.” In 12 months time, I hope my blog doesn’t tell me the same.
