Thursday A.M. Notes - Role Reversal

First, thanks for the overnight comments to yesterday's "short and sour" post. Yea I was pissed after booting away a fine day on pure sloppiness. I was as mad as I've been all year ... including the disaster days.

And it wasn't the minor chip ding (-$7K) -- although that's a far cry from where I stood at 2pm -- that bugged me. Rather it was the unfocused sloppiness that had begun a few days ago and finally ended up biting me.

I did a lot of thinking last night, including reverting back to the "Tao of Poker" that had about 20 excerpts that described my late afternoon -- the ones about fatigue & distractions, momentarily slipping back to rookie mode, and sometimes by thinking two steps ahead, we're one step too early. They all applied. Those and my own new segment on "stupidity".

I know better. I suck in the afternoons. I really suck after 3pm. I don't trade well when tired. (And in this final leg of the race, I've also been finding myself tired more often lately ... with no relay baton to pass.) I had the market read perfectly, yet the connection between the mind and fingers was frayed. And for the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to blow past my mental trailing stop on the daily "trade".

Yet most importantly, the more I tossed and turned last night, the more I realized I've accidentally slipped in to "Ivan Drago" mode lately, including when he finally gets cut and the announcers scream "The Russian is bleeding" and when Duke says to Rocky, "He's worried! You cut him! You hurt him! You see? You see? He's not a machine, he's a man!"

You see, I'm not Ivan Drago. I'm supposed to be the other guy. The humble underdog. The comeback kid. The guy who talks funny.

I don't know what today will bring.

But I've been pounding bare meat all night and we'll see if that helps.

Sincerely,

Rocky