Ok, ok, I cop to it. I haven’t been posting as much as usual. But then again, I haven’t been playing as much as usual (see the last post). Since this claims to be a poker blog, one sort of equates to the other, I think.

I don’t think I’ve lost “the bug”. How could I? Poker’s been in my veins since I was a freshman in high school, playing quarter games in a friend’s basement. That’s going on fifteen years now.

No, I haven’t lost the bug, I’ve just been distracted. Not the good kind of distracted (that would be female-oriented distraction), not the bad kind of distracted (that would be anxiety/depression/whatever-oriented distraction), just “distracted”. I’m in another one of my seemingly annual ruts and what’s required to push myself out of it is a swift kick in the ass. Last year, that kick was a quick day trip to Binion’s for the WSOP, followed by a move a week later across the country. I’m not sure where the kick will come from this year.

In the meantime, to get some poker content up, I’m going to be typing up some thoughts on playing fourth street in razz. Should be up here “soon”.

Quick Shout Out

A hearty thanks goes out to reader Craig S. for contributing the new and improved F train logo which graces the top of my site, replacing the clunky-ass kludge of a logo that I threw up there a week ago (rock on, MSPaint). At first, I thought the email Craig sent, subject “F Train Logo”, might be a cease and desist letter from the MTA. While that would have been kind of exciting, I’d much rather take the improved logo. Thanks Craig!

Why HORSE Is So Difficult

Well, since last week’s near-win, the only poker I’ve played was the WPBT WSOP satellite. I found it so dreadfully boring. Flop game. Pfah.

I’m totally hooked on razz now, and I’m sure that my holdem play has suffered for it. Guns (or was it DoubleAs?) would say that “stasis = death”, and to a certain extent he’s right. I’m sure my holdem skills have degraded somewhat over the last few months as I’ve dialed down the amount of holdem I’ve played and tried to concentrate on razz. It is inevitable. That’s why successful HORSE players are so few and far between. Each individual game takes enough concentration to master on its own, never mind trying to do five simultaneously.

At the same time as my holdem decline, I haven’t been that motivated to play much poker overall. It’s not really a result of my February flameout, but just that I’ve been doing “other things”, especially other computer things. Those things have forced my online playing frequency way down. The thing is, it’s not like I’m making it up by playing live. I haven’t been getting out to the New York rooms that often; I haven’t been to AC in three months; and the Above Malibu game, long a staple of my diet, was switched from Wednesday at 10:30pm (a bad enough time) to Sunday at 10pm (a god-awful time). Even the games at the Blue Parrot have become, at best, a monthly affair. Combine all of that with the impossibility of finding a live razz game, and well…

There’s only one solution here, obviously, and that’s to play more. Poker is not like riding a bike — if you don’t use the skills you have developed and built up, they will deteriorate over time. If you’re not out there on the tables on a regular basis, you’re giving money away, not just by the money you’re not winning, but by the money that you will eventually lose (that you otherwise wouldn’t have) by not keeping your skills sharp.

In the end, a shark is really just a big ol’ fish.