Tuesday 2/14/2006

Still feeling confident about last night. I am playing well and my cards are holding up, even caught a few suckouts! I havent played yet today, but as I was in the shower, it got me to thinking about poker, my recent downswing, and my recovery from it. My second major downswing is in the books and it rattled me pretty good. Confidence was SHOT! Patience were SHOT! Temper was FLARING! Honestly, I think that downswing and some of the events afterwards helped me immensely...Here's how.

After I decided to make a push and start playing more sngs, about a month ago, I have been struggling to remain as profitable as I would have liked, but thank god still profitable. January started out nicely, good profits and solid returns. But, as I increased the number of sngs I played, I found my ROI and ITM% drop, and that lead my $$/hr to plunge. I think I have found a reason for this.

I blamed it on variance and bad luck, with some occaisional bad play. When I start to go on a losing streak, say no cashes in 5 or more, I start to play my "A" game to stop the slide and start to climb out of the hole. This usually works and after a few hours, I'm up and hitting the sack. Sometimes, the slide continues and that's when I think my play can start to fall apart. Well, that is what I used to blame it on. As you remember, my laptop was out of commission for about a week. After playing on my desktop, away from everyone and all the normal household distractions, I have a different answer.

Yes, I did get pretty damn unlucky during that losing streak, no doubt. I would see AA or KK in front of me and see it as a death sentence...a hand I was committed to playing and just knowing it was going to get cracked! I started to alter my play, tighen up, loosen up, aggressive post flop...whatever I could do and I was doing about the same...breaking even. Then I started to climb out of the hole slowly. Things started to come back to normal and my hands were holding up. So, here is where I think the cards started to run as they should...and the bad luck was pretty much gone. I mean, sure these terms are just silly...what is bad luck really? I guess just variance, so lets call it that. Now, it was up to me to play well and recover from the beating I took a few days ago. That is when the laptop went out.

So, I didnt play for a few days...but then I realized I needed to play and had to suck it up and play at the desktop. I resized my screen to 1600X1200 and fired up 3 sngs. did pretty well, fired up some more. Now, the laptop is back, but im still on the desktop. All of the distraction in the living room (TV, people, conversations, etc) were definitely distracting me. I think of it like this...when I am in 3 sngs and itm or on the bubble in all of them, sometimes I fixate on one sng more than the others. typically it is because I am heads up and want to get 1st. But, with the tables so empty, blinds come fast. Next thing I know, I am short stack on my other tables. That is how I play sngs when in the living room. Not enough of my attention is on the game...lack of respect. I have been playing at the desktop this month and my returns have gone back to where I want them (>15%). I have pulled back on number I have been playing, but that is because I am trying to build my roll...remember, goal is to hit $8000, then dabble in the 109s.

UPDATE:

Getting started here...just fired up my first 3.

Well, I finished my set with 2 firsts! Up $335 tonight, so I might not play anymore. It is a nice boost to the bankroll, so I will just be happy with my night.

In the first one I won, I was shortstacked for awhile and was definitely the shortstack on the bubble, but the dominant chip leader took out the 2nd stack when the dude rode top pair and lost to the pocket overpair held by the chip leader. I was heads up now, and with about 1100 chips. I kept pushing...got like K7 or K8 every hand and kept pushing...got to about 3000 chips and i pushed the AKs into him and he called with pocket 10s. I caught a king and took it down from there.

The second one I won, I was down to about 450 chips. I pushed when blinds were 75/150 and just kept up the momentum. After I fought back to about 1000 chips, I got into a three way pot with JJ. It held up and I jumped into the chip lead and took it down from there. Great night...