Serenity

"[Insert deity here], grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference." - Serenity prayer, poker player mantra

I've played about a dozen tournaments this week, and nearly all of them I've had the chips taken away from me in cruel, horrible situations. My greatest success of the week has been 3rd place in measly $2 180 on FullTilt. This however is not your typical woe-is-me bad beat post. I've played my reads rather than my cards, and the faith is growing.

I've had Aces cracked by J-8
I've had the suck-resuck-resuck with AJ vs AT
I've even had KK vs 99 AIPF after raise-reraise-reraise-allin. How did he think 9's were good ?!
Don't even get me started on the way my Queens are performing in critical situations.

And yet I've found more joy in the game in the last two nights than I have for a very long time.

Yes, there are moments of complete and utter disbelief, even anger. But these are becoming less pronounced and shorter lived. I'm believing my own preaching about luck, mistakes and bad beats. My biggest fear when I started playing regularly again was that I'd never get back to this point. You can't miss something you've never had so in the past it was never a problem. Knowing that there is something missing from your game when you're playing is a horrible, horrible feeling. The comfort from having one piece of the jigsaw back in place is very satisfying.

There are still big chunks missing, most notably my attention to opponents playing hands I'm not involved in, and therefore reads are more like fortunate guesses. Slowly though the poker brain is being retrained, and heading back to place it feels good to be at.

** I just reread that, LOL, I sound so pretentious sometimes **
I just feel good about poker right now, OK ! I'm running bad but getting my chips in good. That's something to be chuffed about.
Finally here are some blogs I've added quite recently which you should be reading too

BamBam
Brickin The Nutz
Lair of Lucypher
Easycure
Evy
Donkette
Perticelli
Thinking Man
The Doctor
The Wife