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Dear Full Tilt Poker,

Please turn my doom switch off, It\’s not funny anymore.

No seriously, you have had your fun, stop mucking about and switch the bloody thing off.

Ta,

Jason

Ugh just Ugh…..That\’s all I can say about the last 2 weeks since I updated this blog. In the last entry I said I was experiencing a bit of variance. When I wrote that I did not think 2 weeks later I would still be in the same situation any thoughts of reaching my £300  profit target for this month are long gone. the only thing that stops me from showing a loss this month is Rakeback.

I won\’t go into the details of any of the \’beats\’ I have had, but they have been horrible.

What most people would say is \’I have not had any good cards\’, anyone who has played poker for a while would say \’ I have not had any good situations\’ as you should know that you do not  need \’good\’ cards to win at poker they are just part of the game, sure they are a big  part of the game but in some hands they are not the most important factor.

Let me illustrate and forgive me if I am talking down to you and that this example is a bit simplistic and obvious.

$7.50 Super Turbo first level 20/40 3 min levels 300 starting chips.

 I Have AQ in middle position, UTG limps and I raise the pot with intention of calling a shove from the limper but behind me the button shoves as does the BB and so does the limper. So I am now facing 3 all in\’s with my AQ, they are now good cards in a bad situation. Can I call? Absolutely not! at best I am facing a race with a mid pair and any of them could have AK,KK,QQ or AA and have me in bad shape so you fold. The cards are flpped the limper had QJs, the button has k2 and the BB has AJs. You do the correct thing based on the situation. The other situation is that everyone folds to the limper and he shoves, you get the situation you wanted and if he has limped with AA,KK, QQ or AK you are toast but more than likely he has a smaller ace two Broadway cards or a small pair so you are favorite against most of his range and 50/50 against thing everything else, when he flips his cards he has QJs you fist pump you have him in a bad way, then the flop comes down JJQ and the rest is history. You got the situation you wanted but the cards let you down.

There I go saying I won\’t go into detail and I then go in to detail! this is just generic situations that you may have perhaps once every session, but when you have them time after time it gets a bit much and you risk making the wrong decision in our first example you shove instead of raise and they either have the hands as above or they have the hands you thought they had, either way you go out. or you shove and they all fold, you pick up the blinds and one bet and go out when you receive a beat later on but you would have stayed in if you had doubled up earlier and would have gone on to finish 3rd and picking up a buy in plus a bit of profit.

And this is where the skill of a disciplined player will always come to the fore when the cards do not co-operate you minimize your losses and you are able to dump good hands in bad situations. And you are disciplined enough to know that it is the right decision in that situation even if it appears to be the wrong one at the time, because the vast majority of the time it will be the right decision. Do not let the beats effect what you know is right. Do not let a run a poor results in which you have made the correct decision effect the way you play given the same situation next time.

In short KEEP THE FAITH.

 as the Dalai Lama once said:

There is a saying in Tibetan, “Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.” No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that’s our real disaster.

Jason

So the bubble of consecutive winning days burst and I came back to earth with a bump, as I was visited by my old friend variance. Or so I thought.

While looking at the usual forums I happened upon this thread on 2+2 concerning finish distribution (the amount of times you finish 1,2 or 3rd) and it became clear that my distribution was way out of wack compared to some. Over the past few month\’s the majority of my cashes have been 2nd place this point to one of 2 things:

1. I suck at heads up.

2. not being aggressive enough when down to 4-6 handed and not having enough chips when i get into the money.

from some quick analysis of my play i concluded that it was BOTH of these things that was causing me not to maximize my earnings.

So I have made a few adjustments, I have resolved to be more patient in my heads up play and raise rather than push if possible to try and get the Max value out of my premium hands when my opponent pushes over the top me. So far so good on this my percentage of 1st\’s has increased, but still not at level I am happy with.

The mid-stage aggression is more tricky and to begin with I was over aggressive but now it is settling down and I am starting to get better a picking my moments. I have downloaded a trail of Sit and go Wizard to look at this in more detail and will probably have to make an investment in the \’Wiz\’ in the near future.

since making the adjustments my ROI has stayed at the December level but my ITM has dropped a few points. I am not overly worried about this as ROI is the key along with the distribution.

A side from that i got a $48 refund from Full Tilt as they caught some cheaters and redistributed there ill gotten gains among the players that had been cheated.

So despite being in one of those odd spells of variance where you lose all you 50/50\’s or 60/40\’s but win the 80/20\’s things are not to bad and steady progress is being made.

Another day, another Dollar, so they say, well in my case another $9 in my case. A slow day that very much looked like I was going to book a loss until, the very last sit and go when I need to finish second or better to book a profit and I did just that. Looking at my records this is the fifth day of consecutive profit. My best run of consecutive days of profit is 8 days. It would be nice to beat that, but it is not essential, I think you can become obsessed with booking a profit and sometimes chase your losses when you are either not in the best physical or mental condition to do so. Or even worse you quit early to book that win when the you are playing well and those around you are not and there is more profit to be had.

I was reminded of the quote in today’s title by some guy who was bawling me out in the chat box, he had limped in the SB and I was the BB and pushed over the top of him. He was the chip leader by a fair bit with 1200 odd chips and i had about 270 or so. Any way he called with a small Ace and I had A10 it held and I doubled up. He called me a fish and a stupid Englishman in the chat box and the next hand he limped on the button and I again pushed over the top of him with pocket 9\’s and he called with 34Suited! again my hand held up and he went postal again, saying he was sick of me pushing and he was going to teach me a lesson and that\’s why he called with 34Suited.

Now anyone in their right mind is not going to make that call and he only made because of what happened in the last hand and he wanted revenge, it probably cost him a finish in the top 2 and he eventually went out in third and despite the gift of this guys chips I finished second.

I hope that after he finished that game he logged off and chilled for a while, you can not afford to have an Ego when playing poker, well you can but if your emotions are too raw then you are going to make decisions that will cost in the end. That\’s what I tell myself when someone hits that one out on the river after I have been a 10-1 favorite to win the hand, keep them playing like that and I will win in the end. And if this fails to calm my little tilt monster a quick check on SharkScope to discover how much they have lost. I must admit when I do Sharkscope some of these people they are big losers, today’s specimen was down over $900 in just over 100 sit \’n\’ go\’s.

this month\’s figures so far:

Total Sit \’n\’ Go\’s: 213

Profit: $128.70 (8% ROI)

The quote by the way is from the Dalai Lama.

So today\’s fact\’s and figures are……Yet another day of profit….YAY!

Well the quest is 2 days old and a second day of profit, now a total profit of $39.60 (ROI 4.65) from a 114 sit and go\’s add to that a RakeBack payment of $25.38 pushing me onward on my quest. And now it has a purpose, not just make £3k this year but I have something in mind for the cash. But more on that tomorrow, as from the stats I see people have been visiting the page and given the drivel i have been spouting, I doubt they will return so i have decided to plan my blogs a bit better! and have a subject of the day and today’s subject is Annie Lennox in a bath full of Baked Beans, but more on that later lets have a bit more poker stuff.

Yesterday was an up and down day at one point I was down over 10 buy in\’s and had reached the stage where I was going to cut my losses and stop, book a loss for the day,  after the \’set\’ I was playing (3 games). but all the planets lined up and went on to win all 3 and decided to carry on and ended recovering my losses and making a profit.

I would like to say that this was down to my own skill but that would not be true, some spectacular suck outs did help in this! But in my defense I will say that they were no worse than the one\’s that had been given to me earlier in the day!

So Annie Lennox in a Bath full of Beans, It was new years eve and It had gone 12 we had seen the new year in and me and the wife were watching \’Jools Hollands Hootananay\’ on the TV. Well Wendy was watching it I was as usual lying on the sofa with my netbook balanced on my knees getting an early start to the \’quest\’, when Annie Lennox came on to groans from Wendy, \’do you not like her?\’ said I. \’No not really\’ said Wendy \’It\’s just that every charity event that\’s on the TV, she (Annie) is always on and it get up my nose, she is just annoying\’ \’well said I \’she is only doing her bit for charity\’ \’yes, said Wendy but could she just not sit in a Bath of Baked Beans, like all the normal people that raise money for charity and not inflict her singing on us every time\’. At this point both my games timed out as I was laughing to hard as I had the mental picture of Annie Lennox in a bath full Baked Beans in my head, and do you know what, if Annie did sit in a bath of Baked Beans I would sponsor her………..

Yep a slow start , but a small profit on the first day, sigh…. 62 sit and go\’s and a profit of $13.80 a ROI of under 3%, must do better. But a profit is a profit is a profit, I guess. This month SHOULD be easy to make my target, with rakeback and the end of year Full Tilt bonus. I should get a good start, but if i contiue run like i did yesterday I will struggle. Oh well today is another day……….

First day of the year and everyone is full of new years resolutions…….Welcome to one of mine!

Let me introduce myself:

Name: Jason

Age:38

How long have you been playing poker? : about 2 and a half years

What do you play:  NLH Tournaments, pretty much anything up to $50 buy in. Sit \’n\’ Go\’s and the odd bit of cash (7 card Stud and Razz)

Why do you play: for fun and a bit of pocket money, I am one of those rare things a winning poker player, not enough to buy an island but enough to buy some things for around the house and the odd holiday here and there.

Why have you started this blog: It\’s seems like a good idea, I have recently started to take detailed records (more of this later) and have found that this has helped to focus my game and I hope this blog will do the same.

What are your other Poker resolutions:

    * continue to keep detailed records

    * continue to make a profit each month and TAKE OUT the profit!

    * Play at least one live tournament this year

My poker past is probably the same as most of the players out there, saw it on the telly thought I would have a go, deposited on an online poker room lost it, deposited, lost it, deposited, lost it. Thought it was stupid and invested in some books (Harrington on hold \’em vols 1+2) made a final deposit with the proviso that if I lost it, that would be it from me and was lucky that it stuck! won a few low buy in tourneys and have not looked back I guess. I have now cashed out more than I put in, but got bored. switched from tourneys / sit and go\’s to NLH cash and boy was that a bad move! lost around half my bankroll on Full Tilt in a mixture of bad cash play and a terrible run at sit and go\’s that saw me plunge from a moderate winner on Full Tilt ($300 in sit and go\’s) to the land of the loser -$900. I was still up from my MTT winnings and from my sit n go\’s on other sites (well one PokerStars). Commitments to work and life meant that I could not play MTT\’s apart from at the weekend and I was slowly pissing away my profit on sit and go\’s.

so what was I to do? either improve my cash play or find a niche in sit and go\’s like I had on Stars (18 man 2 table sit and go\’s) on Full Tilt or switch back to Stars.

Then I happened on a post on www.thehendonmob.com forum this led me to the super turbo single table tournaments and this fitted not only my limited time but also my limited attention span! I started to play the $15 buy in\’s with initial success then things went a bit Pete Tong and I started to lose again. so I dropped down to the $7.50 buy in version and I have found my level! and started to claw back my losses over the past few month\’s from -$900 on sharkscope to a profit of $300 and this leads me to my poker goal for the year:

to make £3000  from playing the $7.50 super turbo\’s

from the past few month\’s I should be able to do this, the past 2 month\’s I have cashed out over £300 each month playing 700 sit and go\’s in November and just over 800 in December this was a spectacular return on investment of 5 to 7 percent this is rubbish ROI for this level and the amount of tables I play at the same time (2 or 3) but is steady enough for me. So the plan is I have a $1k bankroll and anything over 1K get\’s cashed out at the end of the month.

I am hoping to post my results daily here and anything I find amusing, so nothing like this rambling bag of shite then!