This blog is about somebody who plays poker and not just about poker itself but a little bit more poker content every now and then shouldn’t hurt.
I haven’t been earning any big bucks lately. My hourly in August was great but the amount of hours played was pretty horrendous. In September I mainly focused on playing the WCOOP in which I really wanted to do well. To make sure I was playing my A-Game I didn’t play anything on the side. I wanted to do good so badly, that I preferred to feel bored for the duration of the tournament in stead of missing out on marginal EV spots. Unfortunately it didn’t work out as I had planned. It’s only 8 tournaments so you can always blame it to variance, I think all poker players who don’t win anything do that right? I only cashed one event, a $215 No-Limit WCOOP were I busted as 1078 where 1080 got paid. No I didn’t fold myself “In the Money” and busted with a short stack, I was crushing the tournament for the first 2 hours or like some others would say: “Running good”. I’m the most disappointed about my results in the Fixed Limit Tournaments. I know that the variance in Fixed Limit is even greater then in No-Limit but I’m so far ahead in those tournaments and in both I didn’t even make the money. No, this just wasn’t my WCOOP.
I also had a ticket for the WCOOP Main Event. A $5.200 No-Limit tournament where the winner would get over $1.000.000 paid out, you would expect anybody would bring his A-game. In stead of being patient because the tournament started so deep, I tried so hard not to get outplayed by some of the best pro’s out there who were sitting at my table, that I was leveling myself constantly. Obvious these guys knew perfect how deep the stacks were in this tournament and had no intention to make crazy bluffs, the only thing I could think of was that they were trying to outplay me in each hand and that I should call with T high cause this was the obvious spot where they would hold 65o. Exaggerating it a bit of course but I didn’t bring my A-Game for sure. I was happy with my play in general but also ready for a new chapter.
October – December is the best time to just grind it out on the cashgames and that’s the only thing that’s on my mind right now. Since I can’t play the Full-Ring LHE games any longer (since Black-Friday) during the late night hours I already thought about switching to 6-max for a long time. There is a lot more action in 6-max, the high stakes are almost always 6-max or shorter and short-handed play will improve my Full-Ring game for sure as well. I could grind 6-max also during day-times so basically it’s perfect. Why didn’t I try it before? Simply because I never really liked it. I’m pretty old-school trained, in those days Full-Ring was the only game thinkable. Trying to get all the money in with A-high was unthinkable and I’ve always had a hard time letting go. It sounds pretty shocking for a guy who has earned plenty of money with poker and we live in 2011 but that’s the way it is and because of that Full-Ring has always been my main-game.
I’ve considered switching to a different game but I think switching to 6-max is by far the best idea. During the WCOOP I also like the 6-max LHE a lot more then previous years, I just enjoyed it a lot more and could see myself playing more of this. So since the end of September I’ve jumped into the $2/$4 6-max LHE games and I’m enjoying it a lot. Till this morning I was close to break-even and hoped to make a nice score during the day. I’ve just played a short but terrible session so I’m now down -1.36BB/100 over 16k hands. For sure the sample is really small so I’m not that worried but I should know better as the way I played this last session was a common mistake from the past. In stead of playing poker and thinking about situations I was just clicking, I could see myself making mistake after mistake but I already had clicked before my brain came back with the correct action. It has happened to me a lot during Full-Ring sessions as well but I’ve noticed it’s something that can happen more easily in 6-max games, mainly because you need weaker holdings to go to showdown in 6-max.
October will be a full month of 6-max $2/$4 grinding. If I do really good I can move up, if I do really really bad I’ll switch back to Full-Ring. At the end of the month I’ll review my results and will think about what games to play in November. It’s all about cashgames these coming months and I really feel like a grinder again. In November there is also the Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam so I will play a bit of Live-Poker as well. I’m not planning on playing a lot of the tournaments but I’m hoping to play some live Fixed Limit cashgames again, since playing live is still something I love to do. I used to go to the Casino a lot but that’s years ago, last Friday I dropped by with some friends and really laughed my ass of witnessing how bad live play still is. It’s easy to say when you are hitting just about anything but for sure there is still a lot of money to be made in poker.
To get back on the previous blog in which I made a lot of promises: I’ve held on to all those promises for 2 weeks now. Still 28 more to go (it’s 7 months in total, not 6 as I mentioned earlier) but I have the feeling I really have this under control. I started at 104,4kg and I’m now at 101.2kg and my goals is roughly 92kg. That should be no problem in 28 weeks but the goal is not only to lose weight but also to be in perfect shape next year. I made the mental switch again and I’m focused on my goal and I can’t wait for the weeks to pass by. The quicker time passed by the fitter I will be and the more weight I have dropped. You could think that I miss enjoying tasty food but actually I’ve been enjoying most meals more then ever. The fact that a Sushi-Restaurant finally opened up in my town helps, since I’ve already been there 3 times but if you cut on food, the food you actually eat becomes more enjoyable as well. I’m happy I’m in the flow again and combined with my grind it should make up for a pretty good end of the year!