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In 5000 hands, I’m down about 80k. It’s somewhat frustrating because when you’re playing poker all the time, you’re used to the swings and it doesn’t really bother you too much, but when you’ve been out of the game it’s a bit easier to let the swings affect your mood. I’ve been playing a fair amount of 40/80 deep NL and 25/50 HU, so 80k isn’t too much considering how aggressive and big these games play. While I’ve sucked out on people and they’ve sucked out on me so it’s not particularly illuminating to just select random hands and show them, this last hand was particularly tilting: my opponent had been running god mode on me, and had just 2 minutes prior apologized for running so hot. So naturally, this would happen:

Full Tilt Poker $40/$80 No Limit Hold’em - 2 players - View hand 510259
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $18953.00
BTN/SB: $23274.00

Pre Flop: ($120.00) Hero is BB with A A
BTN/SB raises to $200, Hero raises to $880, BTN/SB calls $680

Flop: ($1760.00) 9 2 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $1180, BTN/SB raises to $2560, Hero raises to $4840, BTN/SB calls $2280

Turn: ($11440.00) 5 (2 players)
Hero bets $13233 all in, BTN/SB calls $13233

River: ($37906.00) J (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($37906.00) 6 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $37906.00
Hero shows A A (a pair of Aces)
BTN/SB shows A 4 (a straight, Six high)
BTN/SB wins $18952.50
BTN/SB wins $18952.50
(Rake: $1.00)

And with that hand, I decided that losing 60k in half an hour was probably as good a stopping point as any and picked up. I’m really low online right now so I’m going to start getting more money on. In the meantime, I’m going to stick to coaching and playing 10/20, so it’s looking like I won’t be having much new poker content for the next week or so. Just coaching, working on Rap Genius, and maybe getting lunch with friends from time to time.

Oh yeah, and standard “I’m venting about a downswing caveat”: I’m still insanely lucky to be as well off as I am and complaining about a downswing in the middle of a huge recession without being mindful of that would be insane, this happens all the time and I always bounce back it’s just all in the game, I’m just in a bad mood, and I believe in blogging my losses as well as my wins and my bad moods as well as my good ones, etc. etc. yada yada

A friend recently informed me that my blog is the first result when you google “one vile task” (for this post ). Ahead of any references to Deadwood.

I just want to say thank you to all my readers who helped make this possible. I remember one day I told my brother “I’m going to make a Deadwood line more famous on the internet than Deadwood made it” and he said to me “Please, how you goin’ make some line famous when you ain’t even got a blog.” Well, we ain’t gotta dream no more. We did it.

Full Tilt Poker $25/$50 No Limit Hold’em - 5 players - View hand 502632
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $5283.75
BTN: $5000.00
Hero (SB): $10670.00
BB: $5000.00
UTG: $10912.50

Pre Flop: ($75.00) Hero is SB with 2 2
1 fold, CO raises to $150, 1 fold, Hero calls $125, 1 fold

Flop: ($350.00) 2 5 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $200, Hero raises to $500, CO raises to $900, Hero raises to $1650, CO raises to $5133.75 all in, Hero calls $3483.75

Turn: ($10617.50) K (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($10617.50) T (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $10617.50
CO shows K A (two pair, Kings and Fives)
Hero shows 2 2 (a full house, Twos full of Fives)
Hero wins $10614.50
(Rake: $3.00)

I’ve played maybe 500 hands since coming back to poker. I’m up roughly 15k at 25/50. It’s been pretty whatever: I still have trouble getting action and I’m working on getting money online so I don’t even have money on FTP to play 50/100 against the random regs who do want a match from time to time.

However, I have been keeping busy: I’ve been coaching a few hours a day lately and it’s been good to get back in the swing of things. My students have been having good sessions, although I am always amazed at how much tougher the mid-stakes games are getting. BTW, if you’re interested in receiving coaching, PM me on 2p2 or DeucesCracked (FoxwoodsFiend on both)

So here’s the deal.  Law school was great.  I had a fun time.  Met a lot of smart and interesting people, learned some law, got to repeat my standard “I used to be a poker player but no I don’t count cards and you haven’t seen me on TV” schpiel a million times, and had a lot of fun.  The work was manageable and classes were generally pretty engaging. And then exams started.  Worst 3 weeks of my life.  Given that some of you loyal blog readers know the downswings I’ve been on, that’s saying something.  Before exams, I thought everybody who complains about law school was overstating how bad it is but now I know that they were right.

Still, I was planning on toughing it out.  Really, I was.  I had told myself,  “This is just a few bad weeks, stay strong and it gets way easier next year.”  And then Krantz called me right in the middle of exams and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.  The offer went something like this: “Drop out of law school and make more videos and coach more!”  I weighed the pros and cons.

Pros: Law school is stressful and draining, money is good, it’s fun to make videos and coach.  I’ll have time to have hobbies and read for pleasure again.

Cons: Everybody who always told me I was an idiot for going to law school and that I’d drop out in in no time would feel all smug and be able to say “I told you so.”

The pros had it.  So I’m taking a leave of absence for a semester, likely for two semesters, and possibly for forever.  I’ve got an apartment in Cambridge and don’t understand the concept of sunk cost, so I’m going to stay in Massachusetts for at least the next few months.  Cambridge may not be New York, but there’s a Starbucks on the corner and I’m only a 15 minute walk in the bitter cold away from the first halfway decent restaurant so I imagine living here without having anything to do all day will be totally awesome.

Will I ever go back to law school? I don’t know, it depends.  The grass is always greener and when I was playing poker I wanted to do something interesting and when I was doing something interesting I wanted to be able to just chill.  I think my involvement with DeucesCracked, combined with my work on http://RapGenius.com (formerly known as RapeXegesis) will keep me sufficiently engaged.  If not, at least I now know what it’s like to work every day so I’ll have a better sense of what I’m getting into when deciding whether or not to re-quit poker.  Right now I’d say my return to law school is about 50/50.   Exams notwithstanding, I really did love my time there but if my new projects give me something to do that I find engaging and lucrative, it’ll be a hard decision.  We’ll see.

And yes, I’ll be blogging more.  I’ve got some CRAZY stories from law school that I’ll be putting up on the blog every once in a while (for example, did you know that some states use a national standard for determining medical malpractice whereas some states use a modified locality rule?) but for the most part it’ll be poker content.  Stay tuned.