Well, after a long holiday poker hiatus, I’ve been getting back into the groove. Started slow Monday, just a couple of SNG’s, didn’t play Tuesday, and banged out my first profitable session since December 10 last night.
I found I was getting (again) too impatient, trying to make things happen instead of observing the situation before me and making the best possible situation. I was expecting all my flips to hold up and when they didn’t, I would make a dumb tilt play. This is odd for me, because usually I don’t tilt. But I suppose that going on a 3 week downswing would make even a Buddhist monk tilt some bit. So instead of going back to SNG, I decided I needed to re-learn my patience so I played a couple of $2 On-Demand tourneys.
I felt the larger fields would help me be more patient and choose my spots more carefully. Apparently something clicked, because in my third game of the night I fell back into my groove. Went heads-up in a 290something player tourney and took second for almost $80, putting me up $70 for the session.
Going in, I admit I was a bit frustrated about busting out of my last tourney to a runner-runner straight to my 2 pair. Got it in good, made my opponent make the mistake of putting in his money thinking I was on a bluff and still got spanked. Oh well, fire up another…
So there I was, still steaming a bit, but determined to put it behind me and focus on the task at hand. I decided to only play this one game (I usually play 3 or more at a time) in order to help keep my composure and get myself back on track mentally. Started off good, picking up a few small pots to build my stack nicely. Doubled up roughly 70 hands in, to 5.2K, which was double the chip average at the time. I was happy, patient and focused. I got moved to another table, and was pleasantly surprised to see a player named dufferdevon. This player is a member of CC so we got to chatting. We ended up making a last longer bet to the tune of $5. At the time he was sitting on roughly 15K to my 5K, but with the blinds only 30/60 the stacks didn’t matter that much and I felt good about my chances.
Not too long later duffer busted to another maniac bingo player at our table and I was freerollin’ the rest of the game. So three short hours later I made the final table as a short stack (24BB’s), picked up JJ in back to back hands, tripled up the first one, busting the shortest stack at the table, doubled up against another player the second one and found myself in the top 3 in chips. The rest of the game went smooth, and I soon found myself heads-up, which didn’t last too long. 13 hands later my opponent min-raised the button, I shoved with AQ (I was covered) he snapped with 88 and it held up. The win would have been nice, but it felt great to get back in the saddle with a solid 2nd in a MTT.
So tonight is another night, and I think I’m going to play some more MTT before getting back into SNG. Good luck out there everyone!
Good to see you're back to the tables again, was beginning to think you'd gone busto and given up on the writing.
ReplyDeleteGreat way to start the year on a positive note with a winning session too, looking forward to reading more soon.
lol. No, didn't go bust. And even if I did, I would not just give up and vanish. If i keep following my BRM as I have been, going bust will be a long and painful process and I will fill you guys in on all of it.
ReplyDeleteIt was a great way to start the year. One thing that often gets overlooked on poker is cinfidence. Plaers talk about maths, plays reads and stats, but confidence, IMO, plays a huge role in your success at the tables. I'm just glad I got mine back again. A 3+ week downswing is brutal on a guy. But now that I've been through my longest downswing (while playing serious volume) and was able to come out of it still up for the most part, I do not fear it anymore. If anything it has taught me alot about my game. Made me study more. Anyways, glad you enjoy the read. I'll be sure to keep it up.