Back to the Grind....

I’d love to say I’m back feeling refreshed after a two week break from work, but the truth is I’m feeling almost jet lagged after getting used to late nights and long lies.

Tempting as it was to get away for a few days, I simply enjoyed relaxing and taking it easy. Long walks for Nacho, online poker,football,PS3 gaming and mindless net surfing were the order of most days. I also hit the Alea casino last weekend for another go at their 3pm , £22 turbo tourney which attracted over 70 runners. My AJ didn’t improve v 88 all in pre flop with less than ten big blinds left and that was that.I intend giving it another go this weekend as I’m starting to feel a bit more comfortable playing live.

As per my September results post I ran well and posted a healthy profit over relatively few games.Going into October I knew I wasn’t going to continue averaging $7 profit per $22 game ,but I wasn’t immediately prepared for the the kind of bad run you wouldn’t believe was possible unless you play a lot of sng’s. The 25 buy-in downswing I suffered at Party back in March certainly helped me cope better this time, although it’s hard to stay sane when you can almost call out in your head the 2 outer card your opponent requires and bang it arrives by the river.( over and over again)

I’ve never ever believed online poker is rigged in any way, but playing 2-3 tables I began to notice I was being dealt the same hand ( sometimes even the suits matched) on two tables at the same time on a seemingly regular basis. When I started to point my mouse at the wee boat on my screen saver photo to try and ensure I was dealt a better hand ( I did it once and of course was dealt KK so it must work ) I knew it was time to stop being silly and get back to focusing on the poker.

The company I work for are still offering a years salary to anyone who wishes to leave by the end of this month. Part of me wanted to use my time off to try and 4-6 table for 6-7 hours and see if I had it in me to consider jacking in the 9-5.In reality I played approx 100 games over the last 12 days which isn’t bad for a hobby player,but comes nowhere near the 70-80 sng’s I’d need to play per day if I wanted a decent full-time income. Of course I was in holiday mode over the last two weeks and perhaps if forced by circumstance I would have enough self discipline to get up at 9-10am and put in 6-7 hours of multi-tabling.The chances are though that I’m just not cut out for endless hours of grinding and I’m far better off just making a few £k every year as a hobby.( cutting back to 4 days per week is a more serious proposition)

October 31st is the 5th anniversary of my real money online poker playing adventures and after making $15k last year, ( including $4.2k Mtt cash) some quick addition shows I've slipped back to only making $4.5-$5k over the ( nearly) 12 months since Nov 1st '08.I've only played approx 2800 sng's over that period and realistically if I'm only going to play about 200-250 games per month then I can only expect to be making around $400 profit.

I suppose I've also made a small step up from the Stars $16's to the Party $22's and have also had to adjust to playing 10 seat single tables games instead of the 18 man games I played previously.After reading a 2+2 thread on how the Party $22's are infested with solid regulars perhaps I should be grateful I'm making anything at all there!

I do plan on using poker winnings to pay for the usual stuff like council tax,car insurance,Rangers season ticket etc when they come round next year so I don't want to blow through my whole roll but I do plan on taking bankroll management a bit less seriously at times and taking a few more shots.( playing a few $55's and one $109 sng over the year is just too nitty!)

Back soon...