Poker swings are sick. Every time I suffer through one of these brutal swings, I think about how many players would quit poker on the spot. Most people can’t stomach it. I, however, have fine tuned myself into an emotional robot. I haven’t perfected this yet, but I impressed myself last night at my ability to ignore the results.

I came close to my all time low yesterday. I was down 40 buyins, or just over $20,000. What a way to start a quest, huh? In the back of my mind, there was the tiniest doubt, “maybe I’m not one of the best players at this level.” Immediately I smacked some sense into myself. The thought didn’t make any sense. I wasn’t playing against the best sit’n’go players in the world. I was playing against fish.

The $500+30’s have been unbelievably soft, and I’m just running terribly. I knew this to be true, and never came back to that doubt again. I knew I was playing great poker, and I continued to play great poker.

Within twenty-four hours, I had neutralized my forty buyin downswing. Every flop turn and river card was in my favor, and exactly when I needed them to be. Every time I lost a coin flip, there were 500 chips in the pot. Every time I won a coin flip, there were 15,000 chips in the pot. Sometimes the cards are just all in your favor, and you’re unstoppable. At the end of the night, I was even, and boy did it feel good.

Some people would come to this point in the quest and think they’re failing, but I refuse to look at it that way. I’ve had the second worst downswing ever of my sit’n’go career, and in a single day, I neutralized it. The final results of this quest are looking to be well below what I expected, but I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve already achieved one victory.

# played: 223
Time invested: 21 hours, 4 minutes
Net Profit: -$1,660
I guess technically, I’m still down money, but that doesn’t change anything. I could argue that after rakeback and VIP bonuses, I’ll be up. It doesn’t really matter though. I’ve recovered. That’s what’s important.