Thursday, December 22, 2011

Playa, Sway, Poker

Ok, I had to delete the last post because it was awful. The more I read it, the more I hated it. Just lacked originality and looked like it was done in a hurry. I'm taking my time with this one, haha.

Playa del Carmen: There's a bit of a back story for this. When I was with my now ex-girlfriend, some horses of mine had expressed some interest on living in a mexican grindhouse. Couldn't do it, because I would've obviously gotten dumped, lol. So, as luck would have it, I got dumped anyways for other stuff, haha, so that opened up the possibility of actually setting it up. I thought about all the pros and cons, and the only real Con is that my fixed costs will increase, perhaps about 1.5k/month, so that's definitely reasonable. As to the Pros, there's just so many: Living with other pros, living with people that share the same interests/goals as me, not being by myself grinding all day, living in a city with a beach, better nightlife, etc etc. So, we're all getting there on the 6th of january (6 guys), looking for a house/condo for a week, then on to grinding and shipping heaps. So, getting there on january 6, 6 guys, 6 months. That's obviously a good omen, lol. Soooo excited. I haven't lived away from my city for 7 years now (semester in Madrid was the only other time).

Playa Bucket List:

- Deep sea fishing
- Skydiving
- Visit Xcaret
- Go scuba diving
- Go on a booze cruise
- Stay in Cancun for a weekend

Book Recommendation and real life applications (and "in before tl;dr") :    

"Sway: The irresistible pull of rational behavior"

Loss aversion: It's our tendency to prefer avoiding losses, than maximizing gains.
   
Real life: Me playing the 2-180's for so fucking long. I always found an excuse. "Oh, I'm a life nit", "My life roll is too small", etc etc. Fuck that. Play the games that your bankroll and skill allow you.

Diagnosis bias: It's sort of like judging a book by its cover.

Real life: Pfff, I've done this countless times. Someone rubs me the wrong way initially, and that's it. I've made my mind and they can go fuck themselves, lol. I've changed a bit in the last few years, but still got some work to do there. Some people just give off bad first impressions and then you find out they're actually pretty cool.

Commitment: Not in regards to settling down, but more along the lines of getting "pot-commited". Sometimes, you'll have invested time, money, your emotions on something that's clearly not working out, but people have a tendency to feel committed.

Real life: We've wrongly felt commited with various of our horses, when they were clearly not working out from the start.

Real life: Also, I was commited on a doomed relationship that had so few good moments towards the end. We should have been over from way back.

Value attribution: In other words, "The value that we attribute to something fundamentally changes how we perceive it". This one blew my mind, haha.

Real life: Recently got together (for drinks, not, like, you know what I mean) with this girl that I've always considered "the one that got away". Funny how practically everyone has one of those. Ok, well, I placed soooo much value in seeing her again (after about 6 years), that anything that wasn't a total failure, I would consider it a success/win. So, I did have a good time, but I was so "swayed" from the start, that I incorrectly judged the interaction. Got infatuated and shit, hahaa, but the book helped me realize what had actually happened. So it's all good. Peter Lassiter said it best on Family Man: "Leave it in the past. Old flames are like old tax returns... put 'em in a file cabinet for three years, and then you cut 'em loose."

There's more cases of people getting swayed in our everyday lives, but that's the gist of it. Thanks to Ben Reasons for recommending me that book.


The Staking Business: It's going well. We got bogan as administrator doing an awesome job, an mtt sicko owning souls and coaching our horses, and also outsource some coaching from other mtt beasts. Everything's goooooooot. 2012 will be amazing.

My poker: 
Chavarov  Click for details  This user has won and claimed $100 in the Optin Cash Giveaway.  Visit my Blog1,541$6.4  $10  64%$9,870  Super TiltN/APokerStars11/10/2011 12/22/2011 E180-180 Rebuys Only SNG Only

Pretty nice heater. I don't think it's a coincidence that I changed a bunch of things in my game. Seems I reached the huge downswing and ensuing b/e RIGHT AFTER getting coached and changing my game towards more aggression. I was pretty clearly doing it wrong. So, good things to come there imo. I'm thinking of completely erradicating freezeout 180's, and just focusing on 3rs + Mtts in 2012. It will be awesome.


Well, that's it for now. Will update when I'm settled in Playa del Carmen....weeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Merry Christmas,

Chavarov