I’m in a slump.

I guess it started in Vegas in December. It began innocently enough. Every good poker player loses. We lose a lot in fact. Way more than we win. Just as the best hitters in baseball only hit safely 30% of the time, top poker players, more often than not, are sent back to the dugout frustrated and mumbling expletives to themselves. That’s normal.

And to take the baseball analogy a step further, every hall-of-famer, at one point or another in his career experienced a slump or two… or ten. The great ones always recover.

But right now? I’m in Chuck Knobloch territory. You remember Chuck.

Back in the early 2000’s the Minnesota Twin second baseman got so far into his own head that he mentally and physically couldn’t make the simple throw from second to first base. Same thing happened to Steve Sax of the Dodgers in the 80’s. They had “the yips”.

I don’t know if there’s a yips application in poker. Or in me. I just know that right now I simply can’t stop losing.

It’s undeniably a thing at this point. I must’ve played in 15 tournaments over four days in early December in Las Vegas. I also played twice at my local club in Scarborough later in December. And I’ve played three tournaments at Commerce since I got to LA in mid-January.

I’ve nothing to show for all that. Naught. Zero. Cipher. I’m in a slump, I tell ya!

I could give you every excuse. I could rattle off my horrendous bad beats, and my seemingly limitless ability to get rivered in crucial situations. What would that prove? The fact is this shit happens to every poker player.

It just shouldn’t happen to me! At least with this much consistency!

I’m a math guy. A probabilities person. And also a cream-rises-to-the top adherent. I’ve been making money my whole life off the backs of guys who are “…so damn unlucky!”. Who just “… can’t catch a fuckin’ break”.

I’m not that guy. I’m the guy who separates that guy from his hard-earned dollars!

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. There’s no luck in poker. Yes, of course there’s random short-term luck, certainly in an individual hand, maybe over the course of a night, or even a whole tournament. Bad players get lucky, good players get unlucky. There is variance. But not over time. Time eliminates luck. That’s a fact.

That said… here we are.

I dunno. I’m on unchartered turf. I’m going to try again Thursday at Commerce. Let’s see what happens.

Has to end sometime, right?

RIGHT?

In the meantime…say it with me… “I’m a good card player. I’m a good card player. I’m a good card player. I’m a good card player. I’m a good card player”.