Merry Xmas!

Just heard from my friend Mark that he and Vicky are back in bonny Scotland for Xmas which is great news as they thought they'd be stuck in Miami due to flight prices.Much consultation with the other halves ahead but looking good for a Friday night or Boxing day session of drinking,smokin' and possibly even poker.Sandy ( who was up for a poker lesson a wee while back) has been playing online and suggested we make it a poker night.Spoke to Mrs A and mentioned the poker element and she's fine with that.Nothing final arranged but I hope something is because we've not seen them for ages.Mark also reckons he will be up for the ROW v US Sunday sng's which will start again in January.That's good news because despite our 3-1 lead we've been short on numbers.

Played and bombed out of Laddies Racehorse freeroll last night before heading to a $5 turbo mtt which lived up to its name and was over quick style for me.

Two .25-.50nl 6 max tables were next on my agenda and I left after 2 hours up $31 overall for my nights work.

When you've won $1k in one night $30 doesn't seem much but when I thought about it I'd be quite happy to make an average of $30 a night every night I play.Even 5 days a week that would give me $600 per month or aprox £300 which would pay my car loan and petrol.I mention the above partly to try and convince myself.We all play poorly on tilt but there's more to tilt than full blown money down the drain mode.I've found myself pushing edges a little too hard and being more willing to gamble than usual in the last couple of days.

Mind you at .25-.50nl the standards are lower in general so sometimes you can go with a hand that would be folded at even .50-1nl. An example for the full ring would be KQ.At $1nl thats a very dangerous hand to call a raise with but at .25nl full ring because players play worse starting hands KQ can be a winner.


One issue I'm always on about is average pot sizes .I noticed Matt at pokerchronicles asking why bother moving up to $100 limit games and better players when he's crushing the $30 fixed limit game and on a much much smaller scale I'm kind of coming to the same conclusion.

I've never ever played more than a few sessions of limit holdem in my life and to be honest I detest it.All this pushing small edges stuff does nothing for me.I did some checking last night at Ladbrokes re average pot sizes at fixed limit games and was astounded by what I discovered.

$5-$10 Fixed limit 6 max games with an average pot of $37! Another was $53.

Even the $10-$20 fixed limit 6 max had only a $130 average pot size!

At the .25-.50nl 6 max tables I was at the average pot sizes were $17 on one table and $14 on my other one.The .50-1nl 6 max tables average ranged from $15-$28.

At $1.50-$3nl it ranged from $56-$97.

The NL $2.50-$5 6 max tables had a higher average ( $133) than their 6 max $10-$20 Fixed limit counterparts.

Now obviously I realised that No Limit tables would have higher averages but just didn't realise the difference would be so large.I don't feel so bad about only making $30 for 2 hours work when I think that if I was a $5-$10 limit player grinding out 1bb per hour wouldn't be making as much.

The differences in earnings potential are the reason I kept pushing my blogger friends Juice and Mr Edge to leave the lower reaches of fixed limit and take the nl plunge.Judging by Juices bankroll graph I think the move has been kind to him and when Mr Edges brushes off a few rough edges and gets some luck he'll be up there too.

Visited their table last night whilst 2 tabling my 6 max and although I was too busy to say hello ( not easy playing 2 tables of 6 max nl,rolling a smoke and chatting to Mrs A) it was good to see Juice with well over his buy in and the Chip leader by a mile being Rosie another Ladbrokes friend of mine( and reader!).Actually another reason for not sitting down was that at a .10-.20nl table I wanna play with the fishies and there were 3 decent players there I'd have to get past first.( and Juice!).

Hope to join them again at a table soon.Last weeks many hours working off my bonus almost felt like hard work compared to a Laddys .10-.20 nl table.

One hint I think I took from Tan Orpheus ( hope I'm crediting the right blogger) is that if you are going to two table then open and play at the first table,get to know the players and only then open up the second table.Tried that over the last few nights and its been a definite help.

Will Wonka's excellent aggression post has also helped my game since I read it.I still tend to belong to camp for monsters school of thinking rather than the put them to the decision school but thats mainly for 2 reasons.Firstly at the wild crazy nl tables I like there's no real need to try and do anything other than play solid poker ( with adjustments) and secondly because I think I'll probably always be more Dan Harrington than Doyle Brunson in my playing style a it suits my personality more.

Having said that last nights table were not particularly wild and I enjoyed ramping up my aggression as per Wills post.Poker players naturally have to be deceitful liars at the table and I'd like to think I'm quite a straightforward honest person in real life and I think it takes time to adjust to the right mentality when I first sit down at the table sometimes.I need to be more aggressive and start stealing more pots from postion.The problem is that at my usual type of tables someone will always play back and when your bluffing that can be costly.The other problem is forcing myself to start "making moves".When you've won your first pot like that and feel like you've stolen from the sweetie jar and got away with it then its easier to do again.

How do I manage to ramble so much about so little?!

Only 2 working days left till Xmas.I'll probably operate like the Glasgow bus service over the festive period.There could be days between posts then 2 or 3 will come along at once.

Now anyone thinking that Acornman couldn't think of a title for todays post and decided to use it to wish everyone a happy Xmas as way round this dilemma should be ashamed of themselves.
Seriously I hope anyone reading this and their families have the best Xmas ever and you all ( Y'all!!) have a healthy and happy 2006.