Time to re-evaluate things

On Sunday I played a bunch of tourneys. Got deep in a few, got unlucky eventually, and didn't cash big, standard donkaments. Spent about $1100, but I managed to qualify for a $2600 WCOOP main event seat on PS throughout the day. I'll probably get the W$ and play some smaller events and play the main one if I cash decent in any of them (yah, right...not the way my tourneys are going!).

Okay, so I won't beat around the bush. Earlier this week, I had a disasterous event occur (pokerwise). I started playing really late one night, when I was already tired. I started out shortstacking $25/$50 on Party. After getting AA cracked a couple times and getting really unlucky a few others, I ended up buying in for the full $5k on at least 3 tables. I was tired, frustrated, tilty, and getting terrible luck. What a bad combination. I had a horrible night dropping a huge chunk. Then, the next afternoon, I jumped back onto the tables feeling crappy about poker and tried to make it all back in 30 minutes (well, I wasn't actually trying to do that but my play probably looked like I was). Things went bad again and I lost a bunch more.

To make a long story short, I lost the majority of what I'd made on my nice little $25/$50 upswing. And it all happened in under 12 hours and only 700 hands. I totally don't want to show the graph of this session by itself because I'll puke if I look at it again, so I'll show the graph starting from when I changed my Party screenname to Grooooooving and took my shot at $25/$50. Here it is, I'll call it....The Hump.

So, the only reason I'm quite calm right now is because I decided to take a few days before I wrote anything about this. I thought about it, a lot, and let it set in, and allowed myself to look at it rationally. Obviously, the couple days after this disaster I hated poker and was panicking, like I always do when things run bad. Now, after a few days, I just feel stupid.

I'm not ready for $25/$50. Even if, on the off-chance that my game is ready (which it probably isn't), my bankroll sure in hell isn't. Too many damn bills! Sure, I was really unlucky earlier this week, and I could post bad beat after bad beat, but what's the point? I was LUCKY to get where I was with such a small roll on Party, now I got unlucky to lose it. Whatever. It was stupid to be playing in the first place. It was possible I would keep up my heater, have won that 20k pot awhile ago, and never looked back. But, the odds of that are pretty slim probably. It was stupid. I knew it all along, but now the lesson has sunk in.

So, back to the drawing board. And like the title says, time to re-evaluate. This is the plan: $5/$10 NL for at least 100k hands. AT LEAST. I will do $10/$20 NL only when there are HUGE fish/maniacs playing. And only while they last at the table. No exceptions. I won't even look at a $25/$50 lobby. I have absolutely no idea how long 100k hands will take. Somewhere in the past year I've started gradually losing my patience and I don't know why. $5/$10 used to be a HUGE game to me, and now it's the smallest thing I play online, I should be happy with that transition. I realized tonight $5/$10 is a game I can play more-or-less very comfortably. I can play my game fully, and not lose my mind or be depressed about big losses hardly ever. But, I can still regularly make an amount I'm very satisfied with.

I have 3 weeks to finish the real estate licensing course assignments which you have 3 months to complete. Yah, procrastinating is very natural to me. Then, I want to write the exam by Oct 17th. This will very likely cut into some poker time (which it should at this point!).

Anyway, that's that. I had a horrible, mind-numbing, experience losing all that Party money I so excited to quickly make. But, there is nothing I can do now. All I can do is learn from it and take this reality-check as a positive. I don't think I'll make a mistake of that stature for a LONG time. I will also never play when I'm extremely tired. You'd think this would be easy but sometimes I get the itch to make a little score before bed and it more often than not goes bad. In fact, I will never play for a quick score anymore. Just because I have a small amount of time to play doesn't mean I have to try and force a few double-ups.

Today was my first poker since earlier this week. I played the $320 heads-up WCOOP event on Stars. Lost my first match of course. This guy runner-runnered me twice in big pots, then I lose this ugliness to get knocked out when I should have gotten the chip lead back. I also lost two $335 SNGs on Stars while I was at it. Standard coinflip losses. Waste of a couple hours in the afternoon.

Tonight I played some $5/$10 on Party. I was hanging out with my buddy "Cracker" John who likes to watch me play online occasionally. So, I fired up a few tables. I really enjoy playing while he watches because he's interested and asks questions which allows me to really talk myself through hands and immediately analyze them. Plus, he obviously cheers for me which is fun and sympathizes with the tough hands. And, I tend to play better (i.e. tigher!) with people watching because it's more embarrassing to make bad plays. So anyway, thanks Cracker, good times.

Here are some hands from this session (I think there are some interesting ones and some decent analysis):

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507578 - one of my criteria for making a big call is when the play just doesn't make sense to me for that player, something is off. I thought MAYBE he could have 77, but not this time.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507505, http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507507 - these are the first two hands i play at this table and just work this guy. I could have looked like a super-genius or a complete donkey on both of these, but I didn't! Big bluff, then big call. Both bang on reads, feels good. Granted, in the 2nd hand he did have a good hand that was actually a favourite on the flop.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507517 - i could smell QJ on him and played it accordingly, though it doesn't really matter, as long as I fastplay this hand he gets stacked everytime. Ship it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507524 - another sweet little set as he's drawin' dead. I just call turn because i want to keep the Blackcode guy in.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507525 - this is probably a pretty marginal hand which will get me in trouble once in awhile totally offsetting the profit I can make on it, but this time, it's all profit! :)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507527 - I'm gettin' lucky! I should probably just fold preflop against a shortstack, but it's Greek Style baby!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507532 - meh, i don't mind this one. shortstack played it well.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507582 - ah shit. this is such bad timing too because I had JUST been caught in a small bluff after raising the previous hand (and I had been raising quite a bit the past couple rotations), so it was prefect timing for KK. I should be careful about overvaluing hands based on what I think my own image is. But this one is tough either way...decent sized pot too.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507617 - woops, i really think he's drawing so I pound the turn. He actually turned the crap out of me, and I then proceed to river him even worse! Nice.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1507671 - i really like how I play this hand. When he bets out on the flop into the preflop raiser, I have him squarely on a draw (I'd bet my whole stack on it, which I do!). I have him primarily on clubs when he keeps up the aggression on the turn. I had hardly any doubt in my mind. Some of you might wonder why I didn't raise the flop or turn then. But, I thought two things: he was on clubs so if they come I can fold, and if he misses his clubs I'm pretty sure he'll bluff the rest of his stack on the river. So, if these two things are true, I should just call the turn. Then, if I club falls on the river I can fold (quite easily actually), and if a brick falls I can check/call the river (which I instacalled). So, I have minimal risk because I can get away from him hitting his hand, yet I still get full value if he misses. I mistakenly label players who check/call me down with weak hands as calling stations, but this hand proves how wrong that can be sometimes because there can be a lot of strategy behind the play.

Summary: I was happy with this session and it was a good start to my $5/$10 NL trek to 100k hands. Here is the graph of this session. I think I did a good job of folding losing hands (even if they appeared strong) early in the betting. This meant I didn't have a lot of tough river decisions that I wasn't sure about. When I called guys down I felt good about it. Part of this was trusting the data I have on players. I didn't start tonight, but from now on, I will start writing more notes on players. It only takes a second and you never know when a specific situation will repeat itself again, so I should start doing it way more.

So, even though this has been one of the worse updates financially on my blog, my frame of mind is okay. I stupidly lost money I was probably lucky to win anyway since I was playing $25/$50 so passively and incorrectly anyway. Plus, the regulars were catching onto my passive play which is really easy to dominate. I was getting bluffed less and less, and getting paid off on my big hands less and less. I'm ready for this 100k hand $5/$10 challenge, and I'm feeling optimistic. A firm plan like this is way overdue.

I'll be playing some more WCOOP events on Stars in the weeks to come. If I could ever win a tournament hand with TT, JJ, QQ, or AK ever again I think I'll do okay. Wish me luck! I'm still itchin' for a really nice tournament score. It'll come one day.

Oh, and I played the best round of golf I have in a couple years. It was at St. Boniface with pretty ugly playing conditions actually (little windy and drizzling). But I think I hit at least 15 out of 18 greens in regulation. The problem is my putting was absolutely horrible and I three-putted at least 4 times (and not from very far away) and hardly made anything else. Still shot a 76 with terrible terrible putting. My driver was better than it's been in a long time. So, that was fun.

Peace!