Spluttering along

Made it into work today despite feeling like shit.I have a man cold.My nose is blocked,my body aches and I've had so little sleep recently I'm nearly falling asleep writing this.

I wanted to play the Dadi event and with hindsight I wish I'd stayed up for it then stayed in bed all day today.Only 3 more working days to go before my week off but if I feel like this tomorrow I'm staying at home.

Not been in the best of moods either over the last few days.More down to tiredness than any badbeat hangover.On the subject of bad beats I've looked at some hands on Pokertracker and while there were some dreadful beats in there I also think I loosened up just a touch too much at times.Trying to overplay and outplay too often when ABC poker would have done the job.Aiming to play a tight and aggressive game just doesn't seem sexy sometimes!

It's too easy to be seduced by the "I play the player not the cards" idea when it comes to online poker and then screw that round in your head to mean any two will do as long as you play them the right way v the right people.

I've only played organised live poker twice.In a live game when I can see that 2 of the 3 players to act after me aren't interested in their hands and are ready to fold then playing the player and raising to steal is fine and to a certain extent I do play the player online.For example I had no read but was still annoyed at myself for losing my buy-in with KK v AA the other night.In an £80 buy-in game with little knowledge of the other players going all in with KK after I'd raised twice before being put all in has to be Aces 90% of the time.

What's the point in playing thousands of hands if I'm not going to learn from it? I think I let myself off too easily over that particular hand at the time.If I want ( and I do) to excel at this game then I'm not going to do it without being brutally honest with myself.If 99% of players would say "ah well it was KK v AA.Best hand v second best hand.Unavoidable"then I want to be in the 1% thats willing to look more closely and say that yes on this occasion it was avoidable.

I've won back $25 since that KK v AA debacle and this time was all in with QQ which was a decent play on my part because I was fairly sure that due to the frequency and size of the villans previous bets that my Queens would be leading when the virtual cards were flipped.( which they were)

In poker it really does depend.The lesson from the KK vAA hand is that when you've only just sat down and have no idea upon what basis to make a decision and only a gut instinct screaming "He's got Aces" then trust that instinct.

Bought a book for my holiday called "Blink" by Martin Galdwell.I'm sure I've seen other bloggers mention it before.Its about snap judgements and "those moments we "know" something without knowing why". May even help improve my game.

I did feel I played a far better game last night.When I got the villan to commit too many chips on a flush draw V my JJ I was able to fold when the danger card hit and he went all in instead of losing chips.I also folded.A lot. Not much choice as I never picked up a hand but I kept my composure,folded for about an hour after that JJ hand and went to be down a bit but happy I'd played 'em right.

Before I go here's a link to BBC Radio 2 which has Dave Gilmour in concert under the "listen again" banner down the right side. Just about to roll one up and do just that!

Ok I just can't resist.Anyone who hates bad beat hand histories ( almost as boring as hearing about someones dreams I know !) please move on promptly to the links on the right otherwise read on....

Game #1846896843: Hold'em NL (£0.25/£0.50) - 2006/03/11 - 19:37:16 (ET)Table "Toccata"

Seat 2 is the button

. Seat 1: Zagga (£40 in chips) Seat 2: Martty (£103.21 in chips) Seat 3: MoEoM (£45.50 in chips) Seat 4: Harde0509 (£78.58 in chips) Seat 5: jimmyjim (£39.46 in chips) Seat 6: tabel (£49.45 in chips)

MoEoM: posts small blind £0.25 Harde0509: posts big blind £0.50-----

HOLE CARDS -----dealt to Zagga [Kh Ks]

jimmyjim: folds tabel: calls £0.50 Zagga: raises to £2.50 Martty: calls £2.50 MoEoM: folds Harde0509: folds tabel: calls £2-----

FLOP ----- [2d 9d 6c]

tabel: bets £8

Zagga: raises to £16

Martty: folds tabel: calls £8----- T

URN ----- [2d 9d 6c][5c]

tabel: bets £13

Zagga: raises to £21.50 and is all-in

tabel: calls £8.50

----- RIVER ----- [2d 9d 6c 5c][7c]

----- SHOW DOWN -----Zagga: shows [Kh Ks] (A Pair of Kings, Nine high)

tabel: shows [9c 3c] (A Flush, Nine high)tabel collects £80.25 from Main pot-----

SUMMARY -----Total pot £83.25
Main pot £80.25 Rake £3 Board [2d 9d 6c 5c 7c]Seat 1: Zagga showed [Kh Ks] and lost Seat 2: Martty (button) folded on the FlopSeat 3: MoEoM (small blind) folded before Flop (didn't bet)Seat 4: Harde0509 (big blind) folded before Flop (didn't bet)Seat 5: jimmyjim folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Seat 6: tabel showed [9c 3c] and won (£80.25) with A Flush, Nine high

Tried to reply to Poker Jones comment ( just to say your spot on and thanks) but system froze and blogspot message said an engineer will be informed!

Better run.That may be the engineer at the door already....