Balancing Energy Levels
OK, so this is going to start off sounding off topic from poker. But I promise it is not. You just have to bear with me.
After this year’s World Series of Poker I felt polluted. The thing is that the WSOP is as much an endurance event as it is a poker event and in that regard I failed this year. I was drinking upwards of 10 Diet Cokes per day in order to try to maintain my energy level and, frankly, that was a pretty terrible strategy. The caffeine intake was so bad that I challenge anyone to fine a picture of me from the WSOP without a Diet Coke in hand or next to me on the table.
Well, there is nothing like guzzling that much soda everyday to make a person just feel like they are eroding from the inside out. So right after the WSOP ended I decided enough was enough and I had to get clean, literally clean my body of the chemical and artificial goo I had been crapping it up with. So I embarked on a 30 day nutritional cleanse. No caffeine. No chemicals. No nicotine. No alcohol. No refined sugar. Just clean living all around.
So the first 10 days my boyfriend offered to move out of the house. And I don’t blame him. I was hard to be around. But I came out the other side and somewhere around week three I felt this energy. An energy I am not sure I have ever had. The kind of energy where you feel like there is no obstacle too big, no challenge that you couldn’t rise to. I woke up every morning just ready. Ready for whatever, anything that came my way.
That is when I realized that the problem before was that I was not finding my own focus and energy from within myself but expecting outside stimulation to pull me through the long days of playing. And that can’t be sustained. The focus has to be your own. The energy generated from within yourself, from your own desire to succeed and take on the challenges that come your way, and I was finding that. Cleaning out all the crap in my body opened me up to the resources that I could draw on from within and what was within me was so much more powerful and sustainable than any artificial stimulant I could ingest.
So after the 30 days were up I kept going. I saw no reason to change what I was doing because I felt so good. At the beginning of September I went to London to play my first big tournament series since the WSOP and since I had changed how I lived. This would be the real test. If I could pass in London playing long hours with jet lag then this new thing I was doing was the real thing.
I came in 21st in the main event there, some days putting in over 12 hours at the tables. And my energy never wavered. I drank my water, ate my protein bars and never once gave in to the temptation to drink a Diet Coke or smoke a cigarette. And an amazing thing happened. I had as much energy and focus at 2 am each morning as I did at 2 pm each afternoon. My energy level remained constant throughout the day, no huge peaks and valleys like I felt during the WSOP. My new life had passed the test. It was a keeper.
So here is the thing: This whole trusting yourself to produce what you need sounds like a bunch of new age mumbo jumbo. I get that. I know it sounds like crunchy hippie bullshit. But especially as it relates to poker I promise you it is important stuff. As poker players we have to be able to put in the hours. The longer we can play alertly and sharply in games that we have an earn in the more money we make. The better off we are as poker players. That fact is the pitfall for so many players. I only fell into extreme caffeine use. But I have other players who, in search of that extra boost they need to play the extra hours, fall into stimulant use much worse than anything ten Diet Cokes a day could do to you. And the same thing has happened to everyone of them: They go broke, their lives fall apart and they never recover from it. Finding your own inner boost to draw from it not just mumbo jumbo, it might not only increase your earn but safe your life too.
So now I am no looking toward the WSOP starting in a few months with a new found confidence. I am not dreading the long hours any more. I know that I can sustain the endurance trial on my own, with the resources I have within me. And this might be the brightest I have felt about the event in years.
playing in my first WSOP event— 7 stud hi/low
3 day event
traveling from ny to vegas the day before toruney starts
any advice about staying up late, the long hours, etc
Don’t drink till the shift is over, maybe not even then; I can see a couple drinks to wind down, cos your adrenaline will be so high, and to go suddenly from all the noise and sensory overload to quiet time can be a tough transition. Also get plenty of rest in your down time. It’s like a sporting event not a party, It may be a tall order, Las Vegas is the most party city on the planet!! Good Luck!!
“crunchy hippie bullshit” sounds like the name of an organic vegan granola bar LOL