Well last week saw very little play – I lost during the 3 sessions I played and was stuck $110 (well $130 but I got a $20 bonus). Was planning on playing during my days off but I ended up getting pissed on the Sunday and recovering on the Monday so not really in the correct mindset. On Tuesday I played an hour session at work, playing 5 tables coz the club was quiet and I made about $45, it was really good to have played this session because it showed me that my play is still good and that, as was conferred by many comments on the forum, last week’s losses were mainly due to bad luck.
I got home at 1am and decided to play the P-Stars $18k guaranteed ($27.50 buy-in). I’ve got a great record in this tourney and came about 50th out of 1200 runners. I don’t think I can put that all down to luck alone, I played ABC, didn’t stack anyone on a cooler and hung on to my chips when I didn’t have good cards. I think my success has often been due to the failure of many others – the stacks are 3k but people still play as if they’re 1.5k – which just means if your patient you can really get deep as long as you don’t splash around. I saw people calling off 1/3 of massive stacks for “set value” which meant that I was able to do fairly well playing strong hands and folding the rest. The problem I have is being able to make chips when it counts, and I need to stop worrying about making the money and focus more on making the final table. I have to confess I folded JJ during the bubble to an early pos. raise and perhaps should have pushed. I have never placed outside of the top 225, but have never placed better than 50th (out of 5 attempts) so need to work on some of my later stage strategy.
Over the next few weeks I want to try to play a bit more poker, but I don’t want to play when I’m not 100% focussed, such as after an 8-10 hour shift. So it’s gonna be hard to balance.
I’m going to start my matched betting soon (bonus whoring on bookie sites). I managed to make £35 on bet-fair quite slyly. I deposited £25 with a bonus code to get me 100% matched bonus and then got a call the next morning to say they’d credit me a further £10 if I made a £5 bet that day. I bet on Roger Federer to beat some 175th in the world no-hoper, and made 50p from my winning £25 bet. However I unlocked £35 of bonuses – score! – my plan is to use whatever profit I make from matched betting to bolster my roll so that I can afford to take a stab at the 50/1. I am currently rolled at $2375 (which is $499 down for the year) – if I can make another $625 from playing and matched betting over the next few weeks I’ll be able to take a stab at the 50/1. I’m pretty sure I can beat that level, I’m just worried about how badly I might take the larger swings. Does anyone have any advice on that? Will wait a while before my next update now, well… at least until something happens.
Ty for reading, gl at the tables.
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5 comments:
If you are worried about the swings you aren't ready to take them. In order to beat the game you have to have absolute confidence in your game and that in the long run (how ever badly you get beaten up in a session) you will be profit.
The way I think of it is that your poker bankroll isn't "real world" money, and that any profit from day to day online isn't real until you actually cash it out. Your poker bankroll only enables you to play in certain games. If you can't get into that mindset, that poker money is very different from real world cash, every beat you take at any level be it $100,$200,$400 etc is going to get you thinking I could have bought x with that.
Yer - i do agree with you, and my roll is very much seperate from my bank account - lol. However, i know if i end a night 4 buy-ins down i'm left thinking of it in sterling terms. obv, this isn't so bad at my stakes, but i know how shit i felt when i lost a load playing a bit higher and how much it affected my game. i'm very confident of my game at 25/50c and i know there are so few players who are better than me, and i can't see there being a massive change when i move up. However, i just really worry about the short term fluctuations.
I was thinking about playing these stakes for longer, but my main problem is the rake - obv the lower you play the harder it is to beat - i think this is one of the main reasons why i want to take a 5 buy-in stab at 50/1 when i have $3k - or is this not advisable?
$3k is plenty for a stab at 0.5/1, if you are mentally ready to take the highs and the lows.
Is there a big difference?, I don't think there is anything earth shattering until you start playing $2/$4. For me that is when you are going to run in to plenty of good players who have a decent grasp of the game. This is even more so since the whole anti-gambling stuff in the US.
Until then, yes, you will find the some half decent players, but it normally doesn't take long to find out why they are still playing $100 or $200.
You sound like you worry a lot about the money etc. Maybe that is the biggest thing you have to work on, enabling yourself to having a certain disregard for it.
This is the real bitch. I have a fair disregard for money when i'm out clubbing, it's only when i'm playing poker i start worrying about my losses. The main problem is i feel really shitty when i've had a bad night - and i need to be able to get over that and just see it a variance. I think what i'll do is hit the 50/1 but set myself a downward cap of $200 - coz i really don't think i'll be playing good poker once i'm down more than that.
not sure what stakes you play - but how do you feel when you lose 3-4 buy-ins in a session?
oh yer - one more point - i've lost £180+ in a day betting horses, £150+ in a day betting football (i have, thankfully, stopped sports betting now) - but i never feel that shit about it. This year was my biggest Grand National loss ever, and i had spent a week planning my bets, i was pissed off but i know i feel 10 times worse when i lose half as much playing poker. I think it's coz you are either out-played (not very often at my stakes), you play badly or you get unlucky to lose. And neither of those three feels great does it - whereas, i know i backed the national with more information than 95% of the betting public this year, my main tip took the lead and fell - what else could i have done?
This is, therefore, my problem...
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