Bump in the road

One of the unfortunate side effects of the long journey is that if I'm focussing on the process, there's gonna be a time I'm gonna do something really silly at the table. Today was one of those days.

The play isn't important, but it happened in the Satellite to the WSOP on Full Tilt this evening, and I can't help but feel it cost me a seat in the Main Event. It was a mistake I thought I'd gotten rid of - a combination of talking myself into making a poor call, a misread, poor math, and an overcalcuation of the size of my stones. The mistake then compounded when, later on, the same player made a poor call that worked out and busted me in 10th, 5 short of the money, 8 short of the seats.

This is going to happen though. I am upset with myself, and I accordingly shut down all poker playing operations for the evening. However, I've had a chance to look back. It was a horrible mistake, but it's one I can learn from. The main lesson, of course, is to not do really stupid shit. The secondary lesson - when you're chipleader, win the small pots, but if the pot shows signs of getting big, make sure you have the goods. I did not.

Tomorrow we go back to the journey. And this mis-step, that's all it was. A bump in the road. A lesson learned. It has been analyzed, is being mourned, and will be learned from. And that's all I can ask of myself once I've made the error.