In his book, Killer Poker Online, John Vorhaus talks a bit about preparation when playing poker:

Whether you realize it or not, you take steps to prepare yourself to play poker at a cardroom. Even if you’re only traveling across a casino from your hotel room to the poker room, you’re involved in a change of space, and this physical transition naturally brings about a mental transition, as well.

Online, it’s different. You can go from cleaning the cat box to posting a blind in the time it takes to click “deal me in.” If you make the jump into online play without proper mental preparation, you run the risk of playing badly to start and getting stuck right away.

BINGO!

I've been putting as much thought into preparing for my online game as I have for what to make order in for dinner (make dinner...lol...who am I kidding).

I'd come home and play a game or two. I'd log on later in the evening and play for the social aspect with the bloggers. I'd wake up on the weekend and put in an hour or so. And a few weeks ago when I had a nice bankroll due to some wins, I never really thought about it.

Join Weak in a $30 Sng? Sure!
Play a $10 Rebuy Madness? Count me in!
Realize how quickly said bankroll was melting? Huh?

So I found myself on Friday night with the following numbers:
PokerStars: 9.90
Full Tilt: 2.80 + one $26 entry chip
Ultimate Bet: 14.36
And thanks to dropping over $1400 on a root canal this week, no room on the credit cards to reload anywhere.

I goofed off on Friday and played a bit...up to two digits on Stars, down to zero cash on Tilt and down to less than 6 bucks on UB. I goofed off a bit more on Saturday morning and lost a bit more.

Luckily I realized that I was just goofing off and procrastinating, so I stopped, did some of the stuff I was supposed to do, and played no poker until later.

But I thought about poker. Decided what I was going to do (one small SnG on Stars, then use my token on FT to play the 18K Guaranteed at 10pm) and mentally prepared.

I made sure that the most pressing work was done, email was caught up, phone calls were made, oddly quirky movies completely watched: Office Space, Secretary and Escape from New York ("Snake Plissken? I heard you were dead"...cracks me up every time!). I was ready.

And the result of the preparation, of making the mental transition between not playing and playing?

- won third in a 18 person SnG on Stars
- won the last longer bet between Sox, Weak and Gracie
- placed 39th of 925 players in the Tilt 18K Guaranteed at 10pm



I know, I know ... well duh. I can be a tad thick sometimes.