diversification

"When it is sunny, who the heck needs an umbrella or a raincoat? But when it is raining or stormy diversification is your shelter, your virtual brick house that can't be brought down by the elements."
-Jim Cramer, Sane Investing in an Insane World

I have always said and written that the most difficult times in your life are the times that prepare you for success to come. Seeing that everything moves in a circle, eventually you have to hit the bottom if you ride the high for long enough. That's what happened to me over the course of this week. There were telltale signs all around saying that something like this might happen, but you can never really predict the exact moment that you will begin the long plunge into decline or the time when you've reached the bottom of it and the only place you can go is up. Over the last month, it has been running horrible for me in poker. I can recall booking two winning sessions and close to ten losing sessions. It got so bad last night that when I got home from skyview I wrote down on a piece of paper today's date and a few other numbers that have no significant value to anyone but myself. The treachery began in 3/6 as I decided to have a seat before a 1/2 NL seat opened up. I was down about 50 when this hand came up. I have KK and I'm UTG so I raise it to 6 and get something like 6 callers. In my head I'm thinking, I have to flop a set to win this hand. Bang, the flop is K 6 2 with two spades. I bet and get four callers. Turn is a rainbow 10, I bet, older lady to my left who I've played with before and whom I know plays very, very tight raises to 12, and two folds back to me. I think for a second and raise to 18, and she quickly calls. At this point, I put her on two pair. River is a rainbow 7. I bet and she calls and shows 22 for set over set. It was beautiful to say the least, but against any other player at the table I make more money. When I got moved over to 1/2 finally, I was thinking that it was going to be a good night. I had JJ on my last hand at the 3/6 table and no over cards came on the board and I cashed out up 60. I went to 1/2 and the third hand I'm dealt is AK. I pop it up to 16 and get two callers. Flop comes K 9 6, two spades. I bet 24 and get one caller. Turn is a rainbow 10 comes off. He checks to me and I bet 30, he thinks about it then moves allin. I got up and called out his cards exactly, 78. After talking myself into the call(thinking maybe he had a KQ or KJ and he moved with top pair and a straight draw), he turned up 7d8d, just as I had called. It's good that I know what people have, but at that point I had committed a bunch of chips to the pot and wasn't going to fold(in the case that he did have something like 9 10 or 6 10 in which case I'd be a 7 to 1 dog to win the pot).

After that, I decided that it was best that I not play anymore that night because I wasn't in the right mind frame. When you call out someone's hand then can't lay down top pair to save yourself, you should not be playing. Looking back on it driving home, it was a horrible call(even though it was a little lucky for him to hit a open ender, and here's why. A 10 there looks very innocuous because a spade automatically looks more dangerous than someone hitting an open ender. If I was in his position, I'm not sure I would have called because if a 10s or 6s comes off, you just might be in over your head if the original bettor was semi-bluffing and hit a spade when you just hit your straight.) Either way, the point of this post is not to tell you a bad beat story or how to tell you when not to call, because I've done plenty of that in the past. That night was a very long one for me because I really had to evaluate my position in life. It seemed a lot worse than it actually was. In most areas of life I am much better off than I was a year ago. A year ago, I had a girlfriend who was obviously cheating on me. Now I have one who just threatens to do so if she ever meets jordan staal :-). Even though we fight sometimes, I am happy with her. We have similar personalities which makes things a lot more relaxed than relationships that I've had in the past. It's not like I have to try to be someone else when we hang out, and that's really important to me in a relationship. This time last year I was beginning to make my name known around pittsburgh as a player in the bigger NL games, and this year it appears I will have to re-establish that reputation. Also, you don't find out who a lot of your true friends are until you are in a little bit over your head. One person in particular(who I have helped several times in the past) has agreed to give me a break similar to the one that I gave him over the summer, and hopefully that will help to re-energize my poker career. If not, I figure that I'm young and I can afford taking a chance because I have many, many years to make back that money if I do end up losing it. I've learned from all this down time that one of the most important things in life is to be diversified. If one friend sells you out, have other ones to fall back on. If one poker game is bad, try another one. Or, in a market sense, if one stock begins to depreciate, have faith that your positive positions in other stocks will save it. The golden rule that I've got out of this whole mess is to not put all your eggs, chickens, or whatever it may be into one basket. A truly diversified individual will not only get the most out of the many people he or she meets and the many different things he/she experiences, but that person will also not be crushed if something goes wrong in one area. And that's all I have to say about that.

To conclude this less than epic post, I'll give you some song lyrics since I've been posting a lot of poems lately. If you ever get a chance to listen to this song, take it, because the instrumental is what really makes this song great. Enjoy

Time in a Bottle
By: Jim Croce

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day
Till Eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I'd save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I've looked around enough to know
That you're the one I want to go
Through time with

If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I've looked around enough to know
That you're the one I want to go
Through time with.



mh