I haven't written in a week because I had an old friend come stay with me and to be honest we did a bit of partying. Well more than a bit. In fact I only played 45 minutes of poker in the 6 days that he was here. What a nice break. When I told my old pal Hatfield that I hadn't played in almost a week he said "Oh you're gonna tear it up now." An odd statement at first glance, but upon reflection I realised he was right, and my results over the alst 24 hours have certainly shown it. <READMORE>

Most of us who play every day are sunject to a very slow and insidious form of tilt. It creeps up on you and takes the slightest edge off your game. You do the same old things, the same old way, sitting in the same old chair every day. Pretty soon you are playing by rote, even with the mental gymnastics involved in serious poker. The very game itself tends to push you away from playing perfect poker, and most of us aren't wired for poker anyway.

Perfectly controleld aggression is something you find in SWAT teams or fighter pilots, not in your average person, and as we play more and more we start to fall away from either the aggression or the control. Taking a few days off puts everything abck in perspective as well as back in control. Over the last few days I was not affected by previous play because all of it was too far gone to bother me. Six days off can seem like forever when you play 330 days a year. The next time you are having some trouble with your game take some time off and give yourself a break. You'll come back to the game fresh, alert, and strong, and most of your opponents will be stuck in that same rut they've been in for months of playing every day. That's pure profit my friends, and that's why we play.

I'll see you at the final table,
Fox

This article sponsored by PokerFox.net where we make players into winners and winners into pros. </READMORE>