Strange Week

I have no idea what's been going on with the poker of late. I just can't seem to get in, and then stay in the groove. I've taken my BiG SLiCK roll up from £50 - 950 and then back down to £700 in the last 2 weeks and my other accounts have been stagnent. Every time i make a couple of buyins and think things are on the up, i lose a couple of buyins + change to coolers and suckouts. It's been really ugly. Ya know, them hands where you're waiting for that muppet sat to yr right to make that 1 mistake......... you pick up AK and a full buyin ends up going in on a Axx flop, he flips Ace rag and rivers his rag. Happening time and time again..... 2 and 3 outers galore. Have really doubted myself lately tbh but i just keep telling myself the money is consistently going in ahead and things must change soon. Fook me..... i wish i could spend Sklansky $$$'s......... I'd be so far up this month it's untrue :S

Took the boat out last Friday and it performed remarkably well to be fair. We had a couple of hours fishing and caught 30 odd fish between the 3 of us. All mackerel & whiting, the majority of which we let go. Just need a towbar on me car now and i'll be all set.

A bit of good news at last........ I entered the Sky Primo bingo allin donkament tonight. it's £25k gtd and i have a real good record in this one. It's monthly and i forget about it nearly every month. The 4 previous ones i entered resulted in 2 FT's. Anyways, i final tabled again tonight and got 4th place for £1750..... a very timely boost to the bankroll! :D Maybe that ease in pressure is what i need to turn the corner.

GLATT

Deeper Still......

Just played 2 rebuy $5k GTD donkaments at ipoker. Really enjoying playing there at the moment. The mtt standard seems to be soooooo poor. It must be if i'm regularly making FT's! lol.
1st one was a $7 rebuy and i was always there or there abouts. Major hand was when 3 left. AIPF my QQ v his AJ and he spikes an A to double up. Can't blame the shove but was a sick hand which would have given me the win i'm sure. I finished 2nd for $850 so can't complain too much. Cheesies got 4th. A good showing from PFU!! :-)

2nd one was a $10 rebuy and again i made the final table. Was doing OK until i picked up KK.....

No Limit Holdem Tournament
$5,000 GP Rebuy Buy-In: $10+$1
8 players
Converted at weaktight.com


Stacks:

UTG	RippThePot	(97832)
UTG+1	MartinL	(107377)
MP1	bouque0808	(51693)
MP2	Bobby291	(126612)
CO	Jackovich	(187684)
BTN	AnnaLies	(57985)
SB	whyme1	(85097)
BB	avemaria	(191719)

Blinds: 5000/10000

Pre-flop: (15000, 8 players)
2 folds, bouque0808 raises to 20000, 2 folds, AnnaLies goes all-in 57985, 2 folds, bouque0808 goes all-in 31693

Flop: (124678, 2 players)

Turn: (124678, 2 players)

River: (124678, 2 players)

Final Pot: 124678
bouque0808 shows:
AnnaLies shows:

bouque0808 wins 118386 ( won +66693 )
AnnaLies wins 6292 ( lost -51693 )


Horrid beat that was. I finished 8th for $177 but was/am pretty gutted tbh.

That mtt win is so close..... i can smell it!
Donkaments!
GLATT

Late edit>....... I played another mtt tonight ($6k gtd) and made it fairly deep. Ended up 14th out of 220 odd. Went out by another suckout and felt pretty steamy so entered a $10 PLO tourny to let some steam off. Started pushing every hand and kept hitting the nuts so slowed down a bit and played it proppa lol. Only 70 odd started but i manage another FT and got 3rd for about $100.
A decent day then with 3 FT's out of 5! 2/235, 8/275, X/300, 14/220, 3/70.
Did OK on the cash too. That means my Big Slick roll has increased from $100 - $1700 in the space of a week playing mainly mtt's :-) They seem sooooo soft/tight/weak etc etc etc. Maybe i'll ditch the cash games for a while ;) Plus i've already got enough points for a polo shirt!

NN

Getting Deeper

Man i must be close to a decent mtt win soon. I keep getting deep in a huge percentage of the tournies i'm entering at the moment but just can't seem to close the deal. Just final tabled the $7.5k GTD at ipoker for 7th place after being chipleader for most of the tournament up until about 14 left. My exit hand was a disgusting AQ v AQ! :-(
Was also going well in the 250k at ipoker earlier tonight and was top 20 all the way through to just after the 2nd break. I then got crippled by an uber donk playing 33 who called an allin checkraise on the flop with 33 ffs....... he had an underpair to the board! He spikes a 3 on the turn and i don't improve. I'd not long before doubled this donkey up when he called a turn push with AT for all of his chips, he had no pair, no draw...... he wasn't even close to being pot committed. It was as if he was playing to lose his chips as quickly as possible.... Just checked the tournament and he came 6th for 12.5k ffs! Where's the justice?
Anyways, at least i know i'm back to playing good poker. Quite enjoying playing a few donkaments for a change but the beats and suckouts don't half hurt after giving your all for 3 hours+
Cash games still not going fantastically.... made a $20 loss today :S

Got the boat ready for launching today but didn't have time to get her in the water. Hopefully Friday should see us getting the boat wet..... only the outside i sincerely hope!

3 Days of Profit!!!

Thank the Lord! The last 3 days have shown a profit and about time. About $800 in 3 days aint bad considering i've only been playing $1/$2 3 tables at the most. The previous 9 days before that consisted of loss, loss, profit, loss, loss, loss, loss, level, loss! About $2.8k down altogether! It could have been a lot worse i suppose and i certainly aint counting my chickens just yet. The last 3 days profit puts me back to where i was 3 weeks ago. I should have just taken 3 weeks off. It would have been a lot more enjoyable than 3 weeks of coolers! Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Here's my graph for the last 40 days or so. Each vertical value = $4k. I suppose i was running pretty hot before the dip so i can't complain too much.
Have been playing some mtt's lately which have been going OK. I'm regularly getting down to the last 10% but am not having the luck when deep. I could do with a decent win at Big Slick to give me a roll there as the games look pretty soft. I just haven't got the spare money to deposit a decent amount at the moment so will just stick to playing smallish mtt's and hope to score a FT or 2.

Looking forward to our week in Portugal.....3 weeks and counting.
GLATT

Slowly Slowly

I feel positive. I don't know why, i just do. The poker hasn't got much better but i woke up this morning feeling generally brighter. Maybe the following cheered me up a bit.......


Holy shit Rolf.... WTF were you thinking man? He painted our Queen FFS! LMAO. I dunno if my respect for him has fallen or risen after hearing that. Am a bit numb TBH lol.

Got 4th in a local tourny last night. Only 25 runners though but was a good laugh and i cashed for £90. Bout bloody time!

Righty, i best crack on. I've got an article to scribe for Inside Poker and it needs to be in by the end of the week.
GLATT :-)

Slow Going

It's not getting any easier this poker lark! I've even started playing a few small buyin mtt's to try and stop the rut. Probably not a good idea because i tend to go off the handle a bit when i've played solidly for a few hours then get a bad beat/cooler/suckout to knock me out just before the big money. I remember now why i stopped playing these damned things lol.
On a brighter note, the standard of mtt play at ipoker seems pretty awful tbh. Lots of players wanting to shove any 2 cards early on. Played in a $11 mtt last night with 366 entrants. This was whittled down to 140 by the 1st break! It wasn't even a turbo! lol. As usual, i got down to 18 left (with 10bb's) and shovelled it AIPF with KK v AT & Ax. Obviously the ace flopped and i've just spent over 3 hours playing for a $24 profit..... sigh. Oh well.... at least i know i was playing solid poker. I'll take that as a huge positive after the last few weeks.

Don't forget the Big Slick offer i got available for new signups. See above for details.

Hopefully gonna try and get the boat in the water this weekend. Keep the RNLI on standby!
GLATT

Poker Is Like Golf

Just been for a golf lesson which was really interesting. My golf game has been really really bad of late so i went to try and get it sorted out. I took a few swings, then went to video my swing, then talked about my swing and state of mind, then hit a few more balls. The points i need to work on were exactly the same points i should be looking at in my poker game.
This is what he told me:
- You're overcomplicating what you're doing. Just get the basics right and the rest will follow.
- More aggression is needed. At the moment you're swinging the club with no punch
- It looks like you've tried changing everything to find the problem. The trouble is, you've succeeded in changing the good things in your swing as well as the bad.
- Don't try too hard. It will come but 1 stage at a time. Don't go hell for leather trying for the perfect golfswing or else you'll come unstuck.

I stood there listening to what he had to say and was thinking...... 'wow, do you want to be my poker coach too?' The above rang so true with how my poker game has been lately. Trying too hard, changing my game, lack of aggression, trying to get too tricky, tilting easily etc etc. Pretty strange to hear all that from a golf coach.

Now i'm hoping my frame of mind is getting more positive. I admit to being pretty low over the last few days but feel generally brighter in myself. I recouped some of yesterdays losses last night and have played a couple of sessions today both resulting in small wins. I know i'm still only 75% but i feel i'm back on the uplslope again. I know i'm still playing too cautiously but at the moment, reducing variance is the key whilst still hopefully making a profit.

A few more winning sessions should see my firing on all cylinders again.

GLATT

Sigh..........

Not a lot of improvement since last post. I've been playing OK but seem to have run into a whole host of donks recently and variance when playing these muppets can be huge. I've lost count of the number of times my money has gone in good and lost over the last week. It's the same old same old...... raise with AK to 6x as yr guaranteed at least 1 caller. Get called by the table fookwit shovefest alliner who calls with A7....... Flop comes A23...... it all goes in and he rivers his magical 7....... then thinks he's the worlds best poker player. Aaaarrrgghhhhhh..... this hand just happened BTW for a $1k pot but is typical of the last week.
Am actually quite sure this has been one of my worst weeks of all-time. 4 losing days out of the last 5 and currently stuck $1k today. Maybe i should just avoid the maniacs for a while and stick to grinding it out on the $2/$4 tables. My mental state really isn't up to playing loose cannons at $3/$6.
I'll spend some time over the next day or 2 watching some cardrunners vids too. That normally sorts me out a bit.
Not a lot else been happening in my world. Got the car back which hit me for £1200 so all in all, a week to be erased from the memory banks.
So..... yet another bad beat post entry in this blog. I promise the next one will be more positive.......

Coolerizations

Wow I can still tilt bad. I mean really really bad! I thought the swirling stomach, the throwing of objects, the shouting at the screen, the rush of blood, etc etc was all behind me? Obviously not! I still get annoyed sometimes but haven't gone on monkey tilt for months until now.

It started Wednesday evening when i went to the river, betting the nuts fairly hard, when i got 2 outered by someone who shouldn't have been in the hand. Basically i flopped the nut flush and he's calling (twice) with an underpair to the board. The turn did pair the board (QQ) but i wasn't at all worried about being beat due to the dynamics of the hand (which i won't bore you with. What i will say is that i 3-bet a decent amount pre-flop with AcKc and he wasn't even the original raiser but still calls with 66.) This guy is normally OK (so i thought) and to be honest, his play wasn't completely out of line other than a terrible call pre-flop. It's what the knob typed in chat after he 2 outers the river....... 'TY'! WTF? Do we not play together nearly every day of the week? Have i ever disrespected you like that? Did i not have a right to be amazed at the way the hand panned out? Anyways, stupidly i got annoyed. I mean.... there is not an occassion EVER where i would disrespect a regular after sucking out like this. I would at least have the decency to give an 'UL' or a 'Sry man' in the chat..... or say nothing at all..... Anyways, i'm over it now lol but that's what started my tilt. 10 hands later it was confounded by someone else 2 outering me when i bet the nutz hard through the streets. I was gobsmacked........ 2 in 10 minutes? WTF is going on? I still ended the day up a little after being really dumb and joining a $5/$10 game for a while. Luckily i hit a couple of decent hands.

Then...... yesterday......... I'm grinding away at 2 x $2/$4 tables and have made about $500 when in the space of an hour i get 2-4 outered 4 times! Yes..... 4 fookin times! I quickly went from being +$500 to -$900. The red mist dropped again and i did well to shut down my games without destroying my computer.

So....... Lessons learned. Don't let some prick wind you up so much. Don't play when tired.

I'm feeling a little less tilted right now but am not gonna play for the time being. May play a little tonight when the donks come out. It is payday afterall ;)

PS.... yes i'm fully expecting all regulars to type 'TY' after every pot they take off me now lol..... i hope they do...... it will de-sensitize me :D

GLATT