Life Shouldn't Be A Fuckin' Grind

I will never be a poker pro, but my lifetime poker ledger is positive and I think that's something to be proud of.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Poker Can be Sooo Frustrating

I think I have a love/hate relationship with variance. I want to stress that I actually won money tonight, but boy could I have made out like a bandit if a few breaks had gone my way. I played a little over 100 hands of 1/2 six-max and for the first time in quite a while I won money at 6-max, it wasn't a huge win...only about 6 big bets, but it gives me confidence that maybe I can beat that game. I think I should still do some more reading when I can get the time and energy, but I believe that I do have the ability to beat the game. I also played some 2/4 and was kind of up and down, I think I ended a little up, but I'm not sure. I had one hand where a I limped with 77 on the button after several players had already limped. The flop came 7A3 with 3 diamonds everyone checked and I bet, 2 players called. The turn was a 3 and it was checked to me, of course I bet my boat and got one caller this time. The river was a blank and my opponent check/raised me and we ended up capping it...he flipped up Aces. If it hadn't been for that hand I would have walked away a big winner on the night...as it was I think I lost a few bucks at the 2/4 tables, but all told I didn't play badly, but I did have to quit pretty abruptly.

I think I've found the best way to curb tilt. When something really bad happens and you get angry or lose a little control, just shutdown online poker for a bit (or the rest of the night). What happened tonight was a pretty unfortunate showing the 6pm $5.50 on FullTilt. My Tourney bankroll has been backsliding of late as I've been pretty unsucessful in SnG's and haven't had any major MTT cashes in a while. Case in point, tonight I didn't cash in 3 SnG's, all of which were due to a combination of less than stellar play and kinda shitty cards/luck. I didn't get sucked out on, but I didn't find many hands either and when I did find one I usually ran up against a better one. Anyway, on to the Tourney. I was playing well, shortstacked most of the way, but managed to hit a nice little rush When I raised with J8s in MP and flopped a str8 to double up, then picked up AQs and busted a player on the very next hand, then picked up the blinds with JJ on the hand after that. From there I played good solid poker and I was cruising until I got moved to a new table with a slightly bigger stack 3 to my left. I felt like once again I'd drawn a kind of shitty position, but I had no intention of letting it kill. Then, the following sequence of hands happened...

First, I picked up the blinds with AT, then the very next hand with about 17k in chips, I'm dealt AJo in EP2 or so and I raise it up to 900 (blinds are 150/300 with 50 ante), one guy behind me calls and we see a flop of 89x heads-up. The pot is about 3k or so and he has somewhere around that much left. I bet out 1800 and he raises all-in...I decided that unless he's caught a set (which is possible, though not necessarily probabl) I'm probably getting the right odds since it's only going to cost me about 1200 to win 5500. He flips up QJo and I'm in great shape, til the turn that is...it was a T and he wins the pot to double through. Then a couple of hands later I'm dealt AsKs in the BB. one guy limps and the guy with more chips than me raises the pot to about 2600 or so (blinds are up to 200/400), I figure that he wouldn't raise that much with AA or KK and I decide to push to give myself fold equity against what is likely something like a pair of Jacks. Of course, he insta-calls and shows KK, I don't improve and I'm done in 51st place...just shy of the money once again. Of course, it's not like I was playing for the 6 bucks that 36th got, I was playing for the final table, but it still sucks hard to come that close to cashing and miss. I won't say I played those two hands great, but I also don't think I played them that badly. If I don't get sucked out on with my AJ I have something like 20k in chips and I probably wouldn't have put so many chips on the AKs. But, the combination of semi-tilt from that bad beat and losing chips (even though I still had plenty if I was just playing for the money) caused me to gamble more than I probably should have on just an AK. Oh well, that's tournament poker.

In bankroll news, it's looking like I'm gonna have to take a break from MTT's for a while and build my roll back up a little. I'm down to about $100 on FullTilt and I'll probably try to build that back up to at least $150 playing $5 and maybe $10 SnG's before I play anymore MTT's. I also made what I hope will be my last withdrawal to pay bills from Party today, so I'm back down to $1350 which is probably the lowest my bankroll has been since I started consistently winning at 2/4 at the end of November. Of course, I've now taken out over $1200 since that time so I guess that's means I've done ok for myself. I'm gonna try to rebuild playing mostly 1/2 six-max so that I can try to get better at shorthanded play, then when I hit $1800 I plan to start taking a serious run at 3/6.

2 Comments:

  • At 5:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    brilliant play with that AK dumbass! you really are a loser with a pipedream. you've made a whopping $400 a month since november,and u think you can beat the game? i'd bet 2-3 hundred of your "big winnings" was bonuses. wake up!

     
  • At 1:55 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Good luck for the rest, im starting shorhanded me too, quite hard for a bankroll (up and down)

     

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