Ignorance is not bliss..

My neighbour returned from a "holiday from hell" last week.Dirty rooms,terrible food,rude staff and guests that fought drunkenly late into the night were just some of the lowlights.They booked a cheap deal through teletext and headed off hoping for the best.

I've booked many holidays via teletext in the past and have usually secured a good deal.The difference is that I'm quite thorough when it comes to looking into things in a bit more detail.I'd check Tripadvisor/holidaysuncovered etc and make sure ( as far as possible)that the hotel lived up to the brochure hype.

I don't have a huge interest in cars or laptops but when I bought mine,I made sure for the month or so before my purchase I read up on every model available,weighed up the pros and cons and made an informed decision.

To put it simply,when I spend money I like to have as much knowledge and background on my purchase as possible to minimise the chances of wasting my hard earned cash.

I feel the same way about my poker which is why I think I've found it hard to multi-table sngs to any great extent.I played 22 turbos last night on Stars and made $94 running at only 15% roi.ROI ( return on investment)figures based on 22 games mean very little as just one more race/coin flip won or lost would make a huge difference, but I can say that when I was 6 tabling last night I could feel that many of my decisions were more based on text book type plays rather than being founded on any great reads on my opponents.

I don't feel I ran particularly well over the 22 games, although I do wonder if I could have made a similar profit over half as many games by being able to focus harder on individual tables and opponents.I just don't enjoy the game as much when I'm forced into a marginal decision without knowing all the "it depends" factors required to make the move with the highest positive expectation.

Ego must come into it too.I've only played just short of 2000 sngs at Stars and when it seems like I'll never win a hand again during a downswing it's reassuring to be able to tell myself I have a good roi and that I'm on one the Sharky leaderboards for average profit.( up to number 8 whoooo!)



In reality whilst it is reassuring and a nice ego stroke to have decent roi stats,I'm still convinced the real profit in sng's comes from accepting a smaller edge and playing a far greater volume of games than I do.One of the very best players,Spacegravy,only has a 10% roi but he's played nearly 40k games and made over $180k! Sifosis only has a 6% roi figure...he's made $417k from just under 13k games.I'm also very well aware that my decent stats are only proof I can win at a very low level and are no guarantee at all that I wouldn't get the kicking of my life at slightly higher stakes!

I do think I need to push outside my comfort zone more often and start 6 tabling on a more regular basis.Of course making worse decisions as a consequence of playing more tables also enevitably leads to crashing out of more games and dealing with the emotions which come with that.

My tilt/steam control isn't too bad but nothing tests it quite like a session of 22 games where I only cash a few times and seem to fall to a ton of sick beats and lost races.Even after just under 2k games I can accept that those beats/lost races are fairly standard or least the rational part of my brain can most of the time! Albatross77 wrote a fine article on sng variance which Mark at Planet Gong linked to on his blog.I'd highly recommend it.

Anyways after my sng fun last night I hit up a Bet 365 6 max $200nl table and won just over $50 from a quick hit and run session..which was nice.

"Which is nice" is a catchphrase from The Fast Show and means I have an excuse to post one of my favourite Ted and Ralph clips..



For more laughs check out Rosies post on her recent conversation with a colleague at work.Top drawer!

I'm off to pick Nacho up and take him a long walk after dropping Step A off at her Dads.Thankfully I'm off on Monday for the bank holiday.Looking forward to a chilled out weekend....

ps Anyone got a spare Uefa Cup final ticket?!!