Loss portfolio

On Friday night, I had another losing session. My last nine deltas don't paint a pretty picture:

-40,000
-37,000
2,300
61,776
-20,600
-35,550
23,100
-80,000
-29,100

The golden ratio has been stood on its head; the number of losing sessions in this stretch is double the number of winning sessions, instead of the other way around. You might think I'd be depressed about this, but actually, I'm not. I was at first, but then did some historical analysis which cheered me right up. I was gloomily certain that I was suffering the worst slump of my poker career, but that just wasn't borne out by the facts. Here are my top 10 worst 9 session stretches:

-213,597 Tue Jun 22 01:00:00 2010 Fri Jul 09 01:00:00 2010
-170,441 Thu Apr 01 01:00:00 2010 Wed Apr 14 01:00:00 2010
-168,325 Thu May 21 01:00:00 2009 Tue Jun 16 01:00:00 2009
-155,074 Tue Mar 15 01:00:00 2011 Fri Apr 01 01:00:00 2011
-152,641 Mon Mar 29 01:00:00 2010 Fri Apr 09 01:00:00 2010
-152,304 Fri Sep 24 01:00:00 2010 Sat Oct 02 01:00:00 2010
-150,611 Wed Sep 22 01:00:00 2010 Thu Sep 30 01:00:00 2010
-148,986 Mon Apr 05 01:00:00 2010 Mon Apr 19 01:00:00 2010
-143,238 Tue Oct 12 01:00:00 2010 Wed Oct 27 01:00:00 2010
-140,704 Sat Sep 25 01:00:00 2010 Mon Oct 04 01:00:00 2010

My current slump only makes it to number 4 on the list. Pitiful! :-)

Seriously, it does you good to lose huge amounts of chips now and then, as long as it's not too often. If you can survive such losses, you have a built-in coping mechanism for the next big loss; your previous losses help you put your current one in perspective. What you end up doing is building a "loss portfolio" which paradoxically makes you feel better. It's actually kind of fun to look at past devastation, since you know you lived through it and came out on the other side!

I'm now on my way to my first play million for the third time. Skeptics among you might claim it's the only play million I'll ever amass, but I beg to differ.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 135 hands and saw flop:
- 28 out of 28 times while in big blind (100%)
- 25 out of 31 times while in small blind (80%)
- 69 out of 76 times in other positions (90%)
- a total of 122 out of 135 (90%)
Pots won at showdown - 12 of 34 (35%)
Pots won without showdown - 20

delta: $-29,100
balance: $923,284