Going from having such a good couple of days last weekend can make the usual weekday grind seem like long hard work. It's not, it's exactly the same thing but mentally you need to be prepared to lose more days than you win in MTT's. That is pretty much how this week has gone so far. I haven't really got a lot going and the days have passed by really uneventfully. I have struggled a little bit with my focus, but I put a lot of this down to changing my schedule and being in a transitional period. The first couple of days have been really tough and I'm not entirely convinced that my new schedule will work. It seems that towards the back end of my sessions I am being left with too few tables for way too long. I probably need to take another look at things I can add into the schedule before I really settle on it because at the end of the day this schedule change is going to be really +LifeEV for me in regards to spending more time with my family.

I have a lot of other things going on as well at the moment with the production of some videos, an article I re-touched that I had previously written as well as another one on the way, some coaching work starting to pop it's head up, as well as trying to maintain my daily grind.

Another thing that seems to keep rearing it's ugly head in the post-black Friday era is scamming/dishonesty within the online poker community. I guess it is something that has always happened, but seems to be becoming more and more prevalent. It is so disappointing to see some of the people who are well trusted members of the community or some people who I have considered friends in the past going down these roads. I like to think I am a pretty good judge of character in general so it becomes more disappointing to hear of people I have previously been good friends with acting in a deceitful manner. There have been some very big noteworthy scams that have been exposed this year and it is absolutely disgusting. We live and work within a community that depends on some level of trust among peers. Without this trust and sense of community the online poker world would not be what it is today, and will not continue to be the way it has been into the future. High publicity scams also do nothing for the public image of online poker either, which obviously benefits no one at this delicate stage in online pokers history. You can call me old fashioned or whatever you like, but when someone gives their word, whether it be online or in the real world, I think that means a lot. When someone has a reputation of being trustworthy, that should not be an invitation to abuse it. It just disgusts me.

In saying all of that; I consider myself very fortunate that I haven't had to be one of the people being taken advantage of to this date in the online poker world. 95% (maybe more) of people involved in the online poker community are completely trustworthy, and all of the people that I consider myself friends with online I feel I can trust whole heartedly. It's just agitating to see so many good people being reflected upon poorly by the behavior of the minority of individuals.

I think I will end the rant there as I have some other things to do, as well as visiting family this afternoon. Hope you guys are all playing/running well!!!

Matt (Follow me on Twitter @mjw006)

You can check out my recent article here