Becoming very discouraged :(

I think since my last post I've depleted my BR to almost nothing. Currently I'm sitting with around $350 in my PS account. I know pretty pathetic for the caliber of player I honestly feel I am.

Things just really haven't been going my way and the beats and unmanageable situations just keep rolling in. I'm now reduced to the lowest of the low limits which isn't the end of the world to me, just frustrating. I've been backed in this corner many times before and have always found a way out, but for some reason I get this uneasy feeling that I'm gonna go busto this time. Thats such a bad attitude for a poker player to have and to be quite honest that mentality probably has some correlation to my recent shityness!

I've spent the past few days doing a lot of forum reading and listening to tons of P5's podcasts. I feel like the game to me just isn't all that exhilarating right now as it used to be. In the past I thrived on those 12+ hour sessions where I would win 10+ buyins at whatever level I was playing at or finishing off that tournament for a nice sized score. These days my time to play is so limited that when I have time I feel like I'm forcing myself to play.

This really fucking sucks because I love poker and the challenging obstacles it presents. I know that this new job that I have is the main factor in my poker demise but monetarily things are going so well for me now that it's taking away from poker.

Who knows what will become of this? By no means am I giving up on poker and by no means have I lost that edge that I used to posses. I think I just need to let everything work itself out. To start anew I plan on having a better outlook on poker and the beats/wins that come my way. I am too young and life is too good right now for me to be stressing and I need to remember that. Having the ability to play online poker with regularity is a blessing in itself, not to mention the success I've had. I need to remind myself of these things and not worry when poker throws a cure ball at me; rather learn how to sit on that pitch and hit it out of the park.

Cash Game Update

I've been trying to get in 500+ hands in a session playing 4 tables...still at $50 NL of course. Things still aren't all that good but then again not all that bad. I haven't been playing on my laptop so don't have exact numbers from poker tracker to key you in on the specifics of how I've been playing. I recently hooked up my desktop to my 42' plasma which is soooo sick. I have a wireless keyboard and mouse so I can play from my couch! Talk about being about as lazy as possible! I don't think it's going to be my primary computer to play on, I just wanted to see what the resolution would look like and try it out. I think I will use this setup for hand/session discussion, video viewing with buddies, final tables, and the occasional session.

So back to the point of this post. I have mixed emotions about dropping down to $50 NL in that going in I thought making money would be like taking candy from a baby but after a few thousand hands I can see that I'm a moron for thinking that. There is no such thing as a free lunch...right? Well here is how I evaluate my play at this level so far. I don't seem to have a problem accumulating money at all, but it's keeping it around that gets me. Like I said in an earlier post, I seem to be spewing chips left and right and more of a conscious effort needs to be put into protecting my stack once I have it.

Let's look at a hand that I played last night.
Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 2: cracksito ($193.35)
Seat 3: Neoblitz727 ($50.05)
Seat 4: tortuga0981 ($64.60) -
Seat 5: birdiemobile ($37.55) -
Seat 6: kevark ($66.05) -


PRE-FLOP:

birdiemobile posts small blind $0.25
kevark posts BIG blind $0.50
Dealt To: tortuga0981


FOLD cracksito
FOLD Neoblitz727
RAISE tortuga0981 ($2)
FOLD birdiemobile
RAISE kevark ($4.50)
CALL tortuga0981 ($2.50)


FLOP:

Pot: $9.75
   

BET kevark ($5)
CALL tortuga0981 ($5)


TURN:

Pot: $19.75
    

BET kevark ($8)
CALL tortuga0981 ($8)


RIVER:

Pot: $35.75
     

BET kevark ($25)
FOLD tortuga0981

kevark collected $33.55 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $35 Rake: $1.70

Final Board:
     

Seat 2: cracksito folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 3: Neoblitz727 folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 4: tortuga0981 button folded on the River - Net Gain/Loss: ($-17.5)
Seat 5: birdiemobile small blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-0.25)
Seat 6: kevark big blind collected 33.55 - Net Gain/Loss: ($16.05)


Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Ok, so I call the smallish min raise from the player in the BB and see a flop where I flop top pair/top kicker. Before we continue I want to talk about what I figured for this player's range. Given that he had been playing 24.32% / 12.16% / 2.20 through 74 hands doesn't tell me all that much but for the most part I peg him as a TAG'ish type player. So I give this weird raise the range of 77+,ATs+,KTs+,QJs,AJo+. Having said that how the hand plays out is weird on my behalf. Looking back I feel I should have raised the flop to find out where I stood. My reasoning for simply calling the entire way was to try to control the pot given what I floped (which I thought could was good) against his weird 3 bet pre-flop. But then the bet on the river just reeked of strength and kind of push me off the hand. And not to mention that the river card filled the one card straight if he had been bluffing with 10 10 the entire time.

So I plugged some numbers into poker stove and they basically called me a pussy which is what I figured.
--------------------
79,200 games 0.005 secs 15,840,000 games/sec

Board: 7c 7s Jd
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 69.488% 65.57% 03.92% 51933 3101.50 {AcJc}
Hand 1: 30.512% 26.60% 03.92% 21064 3101.50 {77+, ATs+, KTs+, QJs, AJo+}
--------------------
I needed to see the numbers to reassure myself that I knew what correct play was, which I did, but the river bet just kind of scared me. It looked like such a "call me" bet after 1/2 pot sized bets on the flop and river that a fold just felt like the right play.

Let's look at another hand I played.
Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

Seat 1: Alfparis ($69.25) ( 62.11% / 27.37% / 0.92/ 95)
Player Notes: Plays a very wide range of hands pre-flop.
Seat 2: tortuga0981 ($92) ( 13.68% / 11.11% / 4.67/ 117)
Seat 4: shanks686 ($47.25) - ( 34.48% / 10.34% / 0.87/ 87)
Seat 5: underdogggg@ ($82.85) - ( 55.29% / 27.06% / 1.33/ 85)
Seat 6: FRUIT_BAGEL ($50) - ( 16.22% / 4.05% / 0.42/ 74)


PRE-FLOP:

underdogggg@ posts small blind $0.25
FRUIT_BAGEL posts BIG blind $0.50
Dealt To: tortuga0981


CALL Alfparis ($0.50)
RAISE tortuga0981 ($3)
FOLD shanks686
FOLD underdogggg@
FOLD FRUIT_BAGEL
CALL Alfparis ($2.50)


FLOP:

Pot: $6.75
   

CHECK Alfparis
BET tortuga0981 ($4)
CALL Alfparis ($4)


TURN:

Pot: $14.75
    

CHECK Alfparis
CHECK tortuga0981


RIVER:

Pot: $14.75
     

BET Alfparis ($15)
RAISE tortuga0981 ($85)
FOLD Alfparis
tortuga0981:


tortuga0981 collected $42.75 from main pot

SUMMARY:
Total pot: $44 Rake: $2

Final Board:
     

Seat 1: Alfparis folded on the River - Net Gain/Loss: ($-22)
Seat 2: tortuga0981 collected 42.75 - Net Gain/Loss: ($20.75)
Seat 4: shanks686 button folded before Flop didnt bet - Net Gain/Loss: ($0)
Seat 5: underdogggg@ small blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-0.25)
Seat 6: FRUIT_BAGEL big blind folded before Flop - Net Gain/Loss: ($-0.5)


Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners

In this hand, the way the cards feel dictated my play on the river. The loose player limps behind me so I make a pretty standard raise from the CO w/ 99. We see an ace high flop and C-bet in position like I would do 100% of the time in this situation. The player calls and I start to think...the turn brings a Jh and we both check. At this point I put him on a smallish pocket pair or a weak ace. So the river brings the 10h filling the heart flush and the broadway straight. This player is not limping KQ nor would he have called the flop with 2 hearts so I'm not scared of a mate hand here. He leads into me for a pot sized bet of $15 but given my rational here he can't call a push. So I push and he folds. Damn poker can be so easy sometimes!

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

So I've logged around 1,200 hands @ the $50 NL level and my stats aren't all that impressive. I think I'm basically even over all those hands. I don't want to say that I played bad in those few sessions but I also don't think I played my best either.

Looking back through some of the hand histories the other night I kept thinking to myself "damn you spew chips like a mo fo". And to be honest it's the truth! I think it has something to do with the lower limit play and the monetary value not really hitting home but that all has to change!

In these few sessions I quad tabled $50 NL and didn't really think the competition was all that good but still gave opponents way more credit than I should have. After all this is a $50 buyin and thats pretty freakin low and does attract many of the super donks. I did take some pretty horrific beats in fairly large pots but that only to be expected. I guess I'll just continue to grind it out and see what happens over a larger sample size....hopefully when I approach 10K in hands I should be closing in on my BR requirment of 2.5K so I can move up to 100 NL.

Well it might take a little more time now:(. I got into a heads up debacle last night with a player who pwned the fuck out of me for $500. Yeah it killed me! So my BR sits at 1.3K meaning I need another 1.2k now to reach my 100 NL step. It's so freaking frustrating when I let shit like this happen. Whatever, the cards aren't really falling my ways these days but I know when they turn around I'll be ok. For now I need to stick to my methods and practice what I preach. I'm thinking realistically we're looking at having to log closer to 50K in hands to get to that next level. Thats a shit ton of hands and will probably take me a good 5 months .


Thats it for now. Wish me luck at the tables.

Rethinking my approach.....

I've had a little more time to sit down and get those much needed hands in. Over the past month or so I've been in a rut in regards to making money though. Normally this would be a red flag and would be something I should worry about but things "in my eyes" aren't really what they seem.

My game is by no means "air tight" and I know where I need to improve. I think where my problem lies though is in my indecisiveness to stick with a certain game and grind it out. I'm constantly switching back and forth between cash and tournament play and this really makes it hard to focus on a specific game and work to become the best you can be at that game. I know I've talked in previous entries about this "indecisiveness" and I think it's reached a point where a permanent decision needs to be made. That being said I want to talk about this whole "rethinking my approach" outlook.

I've been a member of cardrunners.com for about 2 years now and throughout that time have learned a tremendous amount of information in regards to the higher level thinking that goes along with poker. I take time to think about the moves I'm going to make and analyze what I think is going on in hands in order to extract the maximum value from each and every pot I play. Here though lies what I feel to be my biggest problem. I'm a low limit player playing with low limit donks and often I 2nd and 3rd level think hands when all I really need to be doing is playing my hands for what they really are. I know I’m better than the average player and that’s not a question. I’ve been a winning player for 5+ years now and I think it's time to get back to the basics.

My new philosophy in regards to poker is going to be to the KISS method. For those that aren't familiar with this, it’s an acronym meaning Keep It Simple Stupid. I want to make it a point to focus on the lower limit short handed cash games, specifically $50NL and $100NL, and try to just grind out 5 - 10 BB/100 hands. In these sessions I’m not going to get out of hand or try to make moves on players and rather play my hands face up and grind out those dolla-dolla bills yo!

Currently my BR sits at 2K and with using proper BR management methods of having 50+ buyins to play at each level that makes me about $500 short of 100NL. So there is my first goal in this new regime!

I hate to say farewell to tournament play, especially since it's been so good to me in the past. But to me cash games are way too lucrative to pass up. I know I'll take the occasional shot at the Sunday Million and that’s fine, but for now I think I'm going to have to switch gears to try and see a steady increase in my BR.

Poker....it's a son of a bitch!

So I've tried to make an effort to find more time to play poker here in the past week and I've actually gotten to play everyday! Now that should be a good thing...right? Well in this limited time I think I'm leaning towards a losing mentality that I need to stray myself from. Knowing that when I actually get to sit down and play could be the only session I get for the next few days or even weeks makes me want to up the stakes and win it all right then and there.

This is poker 101 and I should know better than this. Sitting with at that time a 3K bankroll I thought I could play the $109's and multitable 1$/2$ NL. What in the hell was I thinking? I know these stakes are quite a bit over my head and that I don't have the proper BR to sustain the losses if they do in fact occur. Well they did occur with a nice slap in the face, and you know, I'm glad that I lost what I did. It takes punches in the gut like this for a poker player to realize what really is at stake here...loads of cash! Just to get it out of the way, I lost a third of my BR in an hour playing heads up and 6-max 1$/2$ NL.

Here is my take on the situation revolving around realizing what is at stake when you come to the table each and every day. It's really hard at times to grasp what you are really striving for when it's only numerical values that fluctuate when you win or lose. When I say numerical values, I mean the dollar value in your "cashier". Only being able to click a button and look at a number after winning a tourney or having a great cash game session isn't enough sometimes. If you received checks weekly from your poker site that would be one thing, but it doesn't work that way. When it's you who has to have the will to withdrawal the money instead of gambling with it, it really becomes a test of self discipline.

Getting back to where I was going with this.....I have to constantly remind myself where I started and how far I have come in poker to not let downswings like this bother me. Knowing that currently I'm a winning poker player makes me secure with the choices I make and the way I play. Yes downswings are brutal and take the breath right out of you, but it's how you bounce back from these pitfalls that make you the poker player you really are.

Remember what you are really playing for. Reward yourself when you win with something nice....I've found this to make the loses sting a little less. If you are a constant BR Nazi then what is it all for? Sure winning loads of cash is nice, but having something to show for winning is what its really about. And above all have fun when you are playing and let your talents dictate your moves. Don't get wrapped up in the monetary values or you will turn gray way too soon.