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...

Break

As I've got a bit of a stomach bug and as I'm still running worse then ever at the turbos ( lost another $200 yesterday over a ton of games at Stars and up $70 from some Party $22's)I'm taking a blogging break for 10-14 days.I'm not too disheartened by my current sng downswing and will keep battering away at them.It's just the way poker goes sometimes and I need to grin,bear it and grind my way through it.It's been a rough couple of months in sng land but ( and this month may be the first!)I've not had a losing month for as long as I can recall and I need to remember I'm a hugely over bankrolled hobby player and the swings I'm seeing are pretty standard for the games I'm playing.

Ok,thanks for reading,back in a while and here's a post I'd saved from ages ago...

I've almost always stuck to the premise that showing my mucked/uncalled hand is a bad idea as it's giving away free information, and in poker information is like gold dust.I also don't think I'm smart enough to flash my uncalled hands and then deal with the change in table image this may bring.( showing a big bluff for example)

I still believe that, but will now occasionally show if it's folded round to me and I've raised with a premium hand and taken the blinds uncontested.This helps solidfy the tight image I like to project and means the first time I make the same move with garbage ( if required) I should still get some respect.

I'm sure we've all been in situations where the big blind gets a walk, everyone folds, the big blind takes the pot and flashes a premium hand as if to say "you were right not to steal as I had a monster and would have played back at you".I've also seen plenty of cases where the big blind proudly shows some crappy Ace rag hand and you can just tell he would have been proud to defend with that too.

Here's a secret,I don't often defend my big blind in tourneys.I will reraise with a wide range if I feel an individual is taking liberties, but generally I want to be first into the pot and not be the one calling.It may affect the whole dynamic of my game, but I wondered if it's worth proudly showing an average hand to the table if I get a walk in the big blind to try and give the impression I'd be happy to defend with a much wider range than is really true.

On another note poker is a game of never say never and I recall calling a regular fairly shortstacked players raise with 89 off the other day.Although I had a decent sized stack and the pot was offering me reasonable odds,I'm fairly sure in terms of that hand ( even though I knew the regular was shoving very wide) it was an -ev call.( it would lose money long term).I called because I felt I wasn't a huge underdog,I had the chance to take out one of the better players left and I wouldn't lose a ton of equity if I did lose the hand.

I did lose the hand above and was telling myself not to be so daft in future when I realised my "fishy call" meant that I'd gained several walks in my big blind ,most probably due to the fact the solid regular in the small blind was suddenly worried that he couldn't shove on me because I'd call with a very wide range.It struck me that perhaps the occasional very loose call ( when you have enough chips to afford it) may have some value later in the game,even if you actually lose the initial hand.

Monthly stats + Bloggerment 48

Pokerstars $3684 ( + $942) ,Party $1664 ( + $80),Bet 365 $671 ( + $91),Full Tilt $503 ( + $26) ,Ladbrokes $593 ( =, although $1k cashed out on 23/2),Pokerroom $36 ( =).
Total $7151. ( + $1139 for month)

Total profit since Oct 31st $3331.( after first 3rd of my 4th year of online poker)

After a poor start to the month of Feb I'm really pleased I managed to turn it around and win over $1k.Most of that has come from turbos sngs at Stars.I played 238 according to sharkscope and made $1039.

I cashed out $1k from Ladbrokes as I don't play there much these days and that has just about cleared my credit card balance.

I'm still very much a hobby player but I would like to continue to make enough to cover my council tax bill ( £775),Rangers season ticket ( £460),Car Insurance £500 and my car Mot and service in July ( £400).Those are just aprox figures and will require about $4200 from my roll.

I've also got 9 days off work coming up after next week and I was considering a trip to the Dam.I'm going to wait though and go with my cousin around May/June time when the weather is better.Sitting having a wee smoke in the sunshine beside a canal whilst watching the world go by is something I can't wait to do again!

Last night I was over at the s-mans and enjoyed some Call of Duty 4 and the Will Smith film " I am Legend" before returning home just in time for Katitudes Friday night rebuy donkament on Full Tilt.I was in the mood for messing around and Kats tourney is just the place to donk it up and make plays I'd never consider in a normal game.I did play like a donkey and have hazy memories of crashing out not long after the rebuy period ended.Nice way to blow off some steam though!

Picked my boy up on the way home from watching us beat Aberdeen 3-1 at Ibrox to keep us top of the league and now it's time for burgers n chips n poker.....