Back to work

What a nightmare I had with my blog last night.At one point I was trying to republish and it stuck on 96% and I thought the whole thing was going down the pan.( less of the "best place for it" shouts please!).

Finally created a new blog and printed off both templates and checked through for any differences.Of course now I've deleted the Pokerstars blogger tourney badge altogether and being particularly stupid I didn't even note the reference number.Doh! I'll email them tonight.At least the blogs looking normal again.No smoking and messing with the blog template in future.

Had a good night last night apart from the above.Mrs A was back at work and I was looking after Step A,playing poker and mucking up my blog.

Spoke to a few friends/family on the phone and it was good to catch up after being away.My sister and her fiancee have moved into their new house.Going up tonight for a wee visit after dinner.My mate Sandy left a message while we were away to say him and his Missus had a baby boy.

My Mum and Dad are away to Benidorm for a few days next week but my Mum says she is now ready to play for real money after making 150k in play chips.Looking forward to see her at a Pokerroom .25nl table soon.

Hit the tables for a 45 minute session last night at Pokerrooms .25nl full ring. Not much happened and I'd folded a lot when I get Ac Ah.I raised to $1 and immediately cursed myself for not raising more when I get 3 callers.Flop comes with 3 clubs.I bet out and get called twice.On the turn the board pairs and I take ages to call a villans all in bet thinking he's probably made a set.It was $10 to call with $38 in the pot and I reckoned I wasn't more than a 4-1 underdog so I had to call.He showed QQ and the other shortstack all in had JJ and I'd doubled my buy in.

Left $27 up and hit the sack at 0.30am just after Mrs A got back.0.30am is my absolute limit for staying up during the week.I'm much more of a night owl than a morning person but as I mentioned before I looked terrible before I left for my holidays mainly due to a lack of sleep and I don't want to go down that road again.Sad as it sounds maybe I have to accept that even at 33 my body can't take constant smoking and poker playing into the night and then getting up for work 6 or 7 hours later.At least in my pre-poker days I would catch up at the weekends and start the week feeling fresh.After recent 12-15 hour weekend sessions it was getting to where I'd feel fresher on Fridays after a full week at work than after the weekend and I'm sure thats not the way its meant to work!

http://yosoyveneno.blogspot.com/ recently posted about Poker for profit or entertainment and that a topic I've given a lot of though to over the last couple of weeks.Why do I play poker? Sometimes I wonder about the entertainment value and fun to be gained from the grind which is low limit cash games.Playing 2 tables helps and when I played live recently there was so much to focus on the 5 hours flew in but the lack of fun and entertainment online are what can lead to slackness and errors.

I find playing at Interpokers 6 max tables the fun factor comes from being involved in big ( well for me) pots.They may be $1 or £1 nl tables but the average pot sizes can get way beyond what they should be and that means focus is vital.

Maybe the answer is to take more regular breaks from the game and not play quite as often.I've only played an hour since I got back and I'm really enjoying my poker.I think I must have been near burnout before.I almost felt I had to play every night and sometimes it was more out of habbit than because I felt I really wanted to play.

Concentration is vital to a good game too and if boredom creeps in thats going to affect win rates .This came to me during a game of virtual tennis on my PSP.I'd played for a few days and was stuck at the same level so out of frustration and boredom I started making silly plays just to see something different on the screen.Lets try a lob shot when my opponent is at the baseline.For my next serve Im gonna drop the ball over the net instead of going for max power.

At virtual tennis it really doesn't matter if my concentration slips a bit.I don't have any money on the line but the next time I get K4 in the BB and the flop comes 4 9 A rainbow I'm not going to call a small bet at a low limit just to play differently and break some of the monotony that comes with a long session.To be fair I did that on my 3rd hand back after my break and realised immediately that I needed to sharpen up or blow a buy in but that kind of slip in concentration can cost big time.

I read someone mention in their blog ( sorry I forget which one) that working on a pc for 7.5 hours a day and then coming home and trying to focus on another pc while playing poker is tough and perhaps until I reflected on it on holiday I hadn't realised how tough.Not tough tough as in back breaking or making life and death decisions but hard enough to affect a win rate.

Actually I'm sitting here at work feeling a bit gutted.I wondered why one of my Celtic supporting colleagues hadn't sent me any emails about Rangers poor league form while I was away.I used to work with him and we're always winding each other up about the game.Just been told he has a brain tumour and is in hospital.Kind of puts my "poker is tough " stuff in perspective.I'll speak to a couple of his closer friends at work and send him a card but he's only in his early 30's so its a real shock.We were never best friends or anything but 2 peas from the same pod when it comes to being passionate about our teams. I hope he recovers fully from his op and is back sending me nasty emails about my team asap.

Ok sorry to end on a sad note like that but I guess blogs are about real life.There aint no script.