Hit me one time...

Well done to Juice on doubling his bankroll ( hehe) by correctly answering my football quiz question.The $10 has been sent!

If it's always easier to write about bad nights at the tables then this may be a long post!

On Monday night I lost about $100 after yet another terrible streak where I couldn't seem to win a hand that went to showdown.I don't use the chatbox in non blogger games but found myself twice answering "np" ( no problem) when other players apologised to me for their suckouts.

I was playing more $12,180 player turbos and my only placing from about 10 games was when I bubbled the final table after my AJ shove was called by the shortstacks A6 which hit a 6 by the river.

Last night I watched our rivals crash out of European competition and then hit the tables.My bad streak continued and I still couldn't get a hand to hold even when miles ahead or win a race.

Even when I made the money in my last two games of the night I still felt like I'd dropped the soap in the prison shower.When you continually get the chips in the middle with a dominating hand and they hit their weak kickers over and over again it would be easy to give in to frustration and tilt.I was determined I was not going to let bad play add to my bad luck and when my A8 shoved fell to A7 to send me out my penultimate game it barely bothered me.

In my last game of the night I did actually get a few hands to hold and made the final table in decent shape until I shoved 1010 over a button raise and was called by AQ.I wasn't at all surprised to see an Ace hit on the flop and I crashed out 7th for $69.If I'd won that race I'd have been in pole position but then if my Auntie had balls she'd be my Uncle eh....

As I drifted off to sleep cursing my luck I realised I have to reconsider the way I look at 180 player turbos.I'm used to making the money in just over ( 28% to be exact) 1/4 of the $16,18 player games I play in and I need to get it into my head that with 162 extra players that ratio would be almost impossible to maintain.I'm not sure what is realistic.Time will tell I suppose if I stick at them.

It's weird because I actually finished up $33 at the end of last night and despite a nasty Monday I'm still up over $100 since that start of the month and yet I still feel like I've taken a beating.

Ok,tonight I'm over at the ex's looking after Step A and Nacho and on Thursday night I'm at Ibrox for our game against Werder Bremen.

Oh and before I go I've finally found something bad to report about cardrunners and their videos.Shouting "One time" or "hit me" at my laptop during hands like the pro's do makes feck all difference to the outcome of the hand...

Rinse and repeat...

The ex ended up staying at her Dads last night ( I even offered to go over and sleep on her couch for a couple of nights to help her feel more settled) and I was able to pick my lad ( Nacho) up after I'd visited my old folks.I played a wee $6 turbo with my Mum and helped her run 88 into Aces!

I took Nacho for a good run and then came home and surfed the net for a while before playing two $16 turbo's and coming 3rd in both.I made $72 profit, but I'm trying to tell myself I only won $4 because that is my average profit per game.The idea is that even if I lose 4-5 games I should still condition myself to believe I won $2 each time.Hopefully this will help keep me on an even keel rather than going to bed cheesed off at going 0/5 ( for example) without cashing or feeling too happy with a $72 win.

I had arrived home at 8-ish and had already eaten so why did I only play two games of poker? ( I also won $10 in a quick 15 min cash session at 365).Most nights I tell myself I will come home from work the next day,eat dinner etc and then either fire up a couple of cash tables or starting multi ( ok, just the two but it's still multi-tabling!) turbo's sngs.In reality I arrive home done in after another day of listening to people ranting/shouting/crying on the phone and usually feel too tired to start playing my best game right away.

Perhaps my lack of playing hours is my inbuilt way of dealing with variance and staving off the tilt monster.I'm certainly not immune to tilt, but my last serious tilty episode was back in May, and although I may make the occasional tilty call/play,it's not something which affects me too badly.

As with most people, repeated bad beats and folding monsters tend to push my tilt button.If I'm only playing a few tourneys ,or a small cash session, then even if I run badly, I can deal with it and bounce back,whereas if I started multi-tabling at 7pm and my luck was out,I don't know if I could continue to play my best game all night.

I'm also a lazy git and although I enjoy playing poker, I sometimes feel as if I'm caught between simply playing for fun/social reasons and trying to push on and double last years $5k profit.Of course the fact that money is a little tighter staying myself and I may need my poker profits for things like car insurance,Rangers season ticket etc ,also weighs on my mind and it can feel more like a chore to play than a pleasurable hobby.

It's strange because my tightass nature means I hate losing money and this helps me to play better and not tilt, but it can also stop me just sitting down and getting on with it I reckon.I watch poker training videos where the players don't care about the fact they had a bad start to a session for example and simply reload quickly if they lose a big pot and keep playing well.I'd know exactly how much I was down and it would prey on my mind to some extent that I was wasn't winning and that my roll had taken a hit.

Ok,as ever I've managed to turn a quick idea for a post into a long rambling load of guff which I've probably posted before in one form other another anyway.

Ok,back soon with more witterings...

Overtime...

I did my first ever weekday overtime at work last night.As I may have mentioned I'm not that fond of my day job, but I'm quite lucky that for what I do I get paid reasonably well and there's usually plenty of overtime available.In some ways I think I'm daft for staying up so late at weekends playing poker, when I could make a lot more by getting a decent sleep and going into work for a few hours.They say money won is twice as sweet as money earned though and I reckon that's true.

My employer also provided a meal which meant when I arrived home about 7.30 ish I could get straight into watching a cardrunners vid.I watched a LAG ( Loose aggressive) player run over a couple of tables and eventually hit the $50nl 6 max tables at Bet 365.

I was trying to keep my preflop aggression up and keep putting pressure on my opponents.A donkey shortstack came over the top of a quite regular preflop raiser and I decided to shove with AK to isolate the donk.Unfortunately for me the preflop raiser had AA and although the donk showed KJ my Big Slick had little chance and I lost a buy-in.

I am very keen to improve my game, however I'm a 7bb winner at $50 nl and I need to make sure I'm not ignoring my instincts in favour of misplaced aggression,especially as it's not easy to get many $50nl players to fold at times.I can't expect to make changes to my game without making errors and as long as my game gets better overall, then I can take a few hits to get there.

Righty,here's a quick one from the paper for my English readers.

Such larks from the England fans. A Scot working in a London office was sent the following e-mail which is doing the rounds of the excitable Nigels.

It reads: "I've just been offered corporate hospitality for the game on Saturday in Paris, all-expenses-paid and I can take a mate.

"So, I was wondering - can you put my bin out on Monday morning?"

Ho ho ho!!

Weekend at last...

I'm not sure whether it's just that I was feeling incredibly tired last night or if it was the aircon in my office but my eyes were so dry last night even the Pokerstars river couldn't get my tear ducts going.
( hard as it tried!)

My eyes were as dry as my posts over the last few days.To be honest I've not been feeling anywhere near my best recently and I reckon it shows here.

Maybe I just need a really good nights sleep because at the moment my poker/blogging enthusiasm seems to vary between an almost manic state where topics and ideas just seem to flow, and a being in a state of complete inertia where I feel like I'm churning out the same old rubbish day after day.

Mrs A has come off the happy pills just over a year after her Mum died and is walking around like a bear with a sore head, which although understandable ,is not helping lighten the mood in our home.Roll on next Friday when Mrs A and I head to sunny Ibiza for a much needed holiday.

To the poker and I began by playing a $1 mtt on Stars for UK players.The main reason for playing was that I felt too tired to play properly but still fancied a game.I think I came around 35/100 and went out when I ran AQ into KK.

A $6 ,18 player sng followed and my luck was out there too.I finished when my steal ( and I'd hardly played a hand) with Q8 was called by Q7.It didn't feel like any great surprise when the flop came 7 9 9 and the turn and river didn't help me either.

I moved to Party $50nl, won a buy-in overall and felt I played quite well.My first table had one loosey goosey fishy and I was fortunate enough to get a chunk of his shortish stack when my 1010 was good on a low ragged board.

I moved to a new table and bluffed the big stack off a hand with my failed flush draw.It wasn't hard as the flop brought two hearts and a Jack.When another Jack fell on the turn I bet as if it had just given me trips and he folded.

I wouldn't usually get away with the above move at the very loose tables I usually play at but this table had tightened enough to make betting draws and throwing in the occasional bluff a profitable move.

Righty thanks for reading.Back soon..