Keeping records

I had to do some serious luck management on Tuesday night, thanks to the gods of irony I guess. In short, I did have a lot of luck; some of it was bad and some of it was terrible.

I bubbled in a $10 PLO sit and go, missed out on a $134 Omaha pot as favourite, and got beaten three times in a row in heads-up games by a guy who sucked out time after time. I actually finished $22 winners despite all that (pitiful for a five hour marathon but never mind) so I think I can go into all the gory details without seeming too bitter.

The $10 sit and go did play a little differently to the $5 ones, perhaps surprisingly. It wasn’t tough by any means, but it lacked the early multi-way ‘carnage’ pots that usually eliminate three or four $5 players in the very early stages. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it meant we didn’t have one dude with half the chips on the table after two rounds. I think it might prove slightly harder to place, but easier to notch some wins, if this game was representative of $10. I enjoyed no luck at all and was quite short for ages, but good patience kept me in with a decent chance with four remaining. Then I made a semi blind-steal as they reached an appropriate level, and got called in two places. Flop and turn checked to me, I could (Captain Hindsight just called to say ‘Should!’) have taken a free river with my draw, but I figured I could take it down with an all-in. Got called, didn’t hit, and I go home naked.

The $134 Omaha pot was painful. I was about $70 up at the time, raised strong pocket Aces on the button and flopped A68 with no suits. First guy bet pot ($12), second guy called. I figured both could well be drawing to straights and duplicating their outs, didn’t want to see a tricky turn, so raised to $48 to put them all-in if they called. Which they did.

The river made a straight for the one guy, who had flopped just about the best straight draw imaginable with 579T in his hand. Even so, because four of his outs were held by me or the other guy, I was 56% to win the pot and I make $22 theoretical dollars every time the hand is played like that. Despite his monster draw, he actually wasn’t far from break-even on his call.

Obviously I was gutted. Its hardly a bad beat, since I only win the hand just over half the time - but it hurts to miss out on a pot like that, which makes a huge difference to your results and does wonders for your confidence.

What actually hurt more though, was the three straight losses to the same guy at $10 heads-up no limit Hold ‘Em. He wasn’t a terrible player, as far as I could tell. I couldn’t simply push him around like everyone I’ve played at $5. However, it quickly became clear that he over-played plenty of hands, particularly when he re-re-raised all-in preflop causing me to fold 89 suited, then showed 22. A crazy move in my opinion, even though on this occasion he knocked me off the better hand. So I decided quickly that I was going to trap him, since he could not resist betting into a check, nor calling all flops and almost all turns.

I managed to do this repeatedly over the three matches, yet just as I was preparing to bring down the hammer on the river he would catch his outs, every single time. JJ versus JK and he spikes a king on the river. My top pair versus his bottom pair and he trips up on the river. My two pair versus his one pair and he rivers the two pair.
All of which meant I could never get into a position of strength. He finished me off in fine style too. I don’t remember the first game, but the second finished with me all-in on the flop with QdQh versus his 3d4d flush draw, which hit the river. The last ended when I flopped trip tens and he made a runner-runner straight.

Some will say I was letting him hit these cards, which is true. However, when ‘trapping’ heads-up you know you will trap yourself occasionally – but you don’t expect it to happen in every single large pot you play. I was monster frustrated, but I will keep playing those tables from time to time and see how it goes.

Anyways, I managed my bad luck pretty well in the important respect of not reacting badly to it, not going on tilt. That certainly helped me post a small profit despite all the carnage I have just described. I think the reason I took it well was that I see the overall trend. I have been on an upward curve for three months, and can see the losing sessions as potholes on the road, rather than chasms.

On that note, I felt like I was treading water a little lately. In late March after some withdrawals and a terrible, terrible run, I had precisely $66 in my account. Having done well since then, I was looking to hit a grand and take a warm glow from turning $66 of scared money into four figures. Just lately I had been getting close and slipping back, getting close and slipping back. Hence my feeling of treading water - yet I looked at my notes after this session and was pleasantly surprised to see that I had won over $500 in basically a month.

Hang on! I thought you said that you don’t keep records!

Aha. Yes, I did say that. Thanks for paying attention. So its time to explain that, and explain why I am now starting to keep records again.

Quite simply, when I was keeping proper, detailed records I would get far too hung up on my hourly rate, in a way that adversely affected my game. If it were dipping then I would get into a defensive-poker funk. If it was soaring then I would often get into the over-confident, loose frame of mind that I have mentioned before and which would cost me a ton of chips.

So, I stopped keeping records. Its not as if an online player can deceive themselves over their results anyway, since either you are depositing more money in your account or you’re not! I just felt that I did not need to see a record of the precise movements of my bankroll, did not need to see a big minus session staring me in the face and affecting my confidence until I reached a fresh page.

Overall, I think it worked wonders for me. I got into the right mentality of just trying to pick good games, make my best decisions in them, and not fret about short-term results. I now feel that I have gotten a handle on that mindset, and for a few weeks have been keeping sketchy records on a couple of scrappy pieces of paper. It hasn’t affected my outlook; indeed, I have been over that thousand dollar mark once or twice during sessions lately but have completely avoided the temptation to quit just so that I could record it for posterity. I quit playing when I don’t like the game, when I am bored, when I have something better to do or (most often) because I have to get up for work in like five hours’ time! Not because I want to record a nice figure in a notebook.

Incidentally, one reason for resuming records has been the fact that I have taken to playing various forms of poker. Whilst I am determined not to let the ledger rule my game, it would be foolish not to be at least aware if one game or another proves to be a consistent hole in my earnings.

That's all for now. I am off to muse on an important poker question: Am I predictable? Don't tell me, you knew I was going to say that...