I thought it would be fitting to start this new blog on a positive note. For those of you not in the know, the last 5 weeks have been the worst continuous period in my poker career and for a while it was start to bleed over into my everyday life. Everything that could go wrong did, the cards, the reads, the situations, the mindset, the emotions, and finally the confidence. But fear not intrepid readers, last night I formulated a plan (with some assistance). I took it upon myself to not only play well (which is a primary goal in all my endeavors, duh) but to maintain a positive mindset and persist with it no matter what happened. I did, and I was able to play very well and turn a nice profit to the tune of what I am used to.
You have to understand that throughout my life I always look for weakness and how to exploit it in numerous activities. So it's only natural that I would be able to use this on the felt to a great advantage. But recently, I have been finding so much weakness that I am quite literally licking my chops to get into hands. Well, for one reason or another my impulse control has been severly lacking and I start making moves and going after weakies with essentially no hand. Sometimes it would work but most of the time I would get in trouble when a few people would make brave calls with marginal hands. Such is life when you are afflicted with the "run over the table" virus. Thankfully, it's curable. I didn't try to run over the table, I tried to refrain from being too judgemental in my mind (thus keeping emotions out of the fray), and just focused on the job(s) at hand. It worked!
Now the point of order is to rebuild from the past month. As a professional poker player or semi-professional, I usually take a chunk of my winnings and put it into my bank account and use the rest to supplement my playing bankroll. Well, at least for the next few wins I will have to forego the personal cuts and really replenish the bankroll. Due to the past 5 weeks and some debatable money management decisions, I am still skating on moderately thin ice for the game I play. I play almost exclusively 5 10 No Limit Hold'em in Los Angeles area Casinos. Commerce, Hollywood Park, The Bicycle, Hawaiian Gardens, etc... These games range from a 400 restricted buyin game to a 500 minimum unrestricted max game. So depending on the game I may need 400 or 1600 to feel comfortable. I found (to my great displeasure) that I was quite unable to take the 200 game at Commerce (2-5 blinds) as seriously not only because of the continual short stack feeling I had at the lack of money on the table but also at the seriously confined structure of a two street betting game. Implied odds for the most part vanish. The same is true in the 400 game as both games sport a 40X BB structure but for some reason the 400 game feels much more comforting because there is so much money on the table. It could just be numerous soft spots in the 400 game that make it much more worthwhile to play. Or it could be the naive fearlessness of the 200 players who will raise with trouble hands like QJoff in a multiway pot and push it through when they hit a Jack like they hit top set. Again, based on the structure this is not entirely a bad idea but as poker thinking in general goes, its dry, predictable, unimaginable, and to me an utterly disgusting way to play.
Ooops. I was supposed to stay postive. Well, let's just say that low stakes games with little room for maneuverability are not for me.
I'll leave it at that and hope that I can continue to rebound.
Danyul
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