Something I've been thinking about lately is this blog. Specifically, what's this Poker Bug thing all about? Call it existential angst, but what the hell is la raison d'etre of the Bug? What's the purpose? I've been to the WSOP, and I have returned. Now what?
Years ago, when I started posting on these pages, the blog purpose was crystal clear: get better at poker by trying to write down lessons learned, thoughts, and ideas. Along the way, I've interjected lots of other things herein, including poker news, politics, and plenty of bitching, whining, and moaning. But the overarching goal has always been to articulate poker theory and lessons learned in a way that I could then internalize and learn from. Decades ago, I taught Calculus 101 at the local community college, and the big life lesson I took away from that experience is that if you want to truly master something, try explaining it to someone else. This blog has definitely served that same purpose; I don't think I'm bragging when I say that I'm now a pretty good poker player, at least at the small and medium cash stakes. I've played roughly two million hands of Hold'em over the past decade, and for the last half million or so I've averaged an hourly earn rate that could actually serve as a back-up career if my current one ever went kaput. No, I wouldn't be rich, and no, I really don't want to play poker for a living, but I could if I had to; I could pay the bills and keep a roof overhead if it all came to that.
The other day I looked at PokerBug's web traffic statistics, which showed that over 90,000 visitors have dropped in on this self-improvement journey. I average around 200 repeat readers per day, from pretty much all over the globe. This would seem to imply that there's still an audience for my scribblings, but the big question remains: where do I go from here?
Good question, and I'm not sure what the real answer is. Part of continuing the blog is to keep getting better, and I've got a lot in my game yet to improve upon. Minutes to learn, a lifetime to master, right? Tournament play is definitely an area that could be bettered, as well as other games, such as Omaha and Stud. And Hold'em hand reviews and musings still interest me...
...but that's no longer enough. I think now I want to do something a little bigger picture than just continuing the same old, same old....
... which brings me to my somewhat fuzzy and cryptic point: I've been germinating an idea about a relatively big poker-related project. I have bounced the seed of this idea off a few people such as Mr. Multi to get constructive feedback, and to see if I can figure out how the blog ties into the project. I'm not quite ready to commit to the project, but I'm definitely leaning that way. It's been said that the cure to angst is purpose, and this project would definitely be a big, big purpose, filled with lots of angst.
Poker Bug is not going away, but the focus might be changing a bit.
All-in for now...
-Bug
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