Two out of three ain't good

There was no golden nugget in Hellmuth’s book section on pot limit Omaha. A shame, since I could have done with it last night.

I dropped over a hundred dollars at PLO for the second time in my last three sessions, which is dreadful. The only golden nugget of advice I actually needed last night was:

‘Fold!’

True, I suffered with poor cards and can only recall showing down one winner in three and a half hours, which shows that my bluffs weren’t working, my rivers weren’t hitting and I wasn’t getting called when I did make a hand. Well, that happens from time to time, but I simply tossed about $50 of my loss with poor calls. Twice I talked myself into fairly large losing calls on the river, which is not normally one of my errors. I have to remember that for the vast majority of my opponents, being ‘tricky’ or skilful only means one thing – slow-playing. If they check-call the scary turn and then bet the river they are not making a brave and elaborate bluff, they simply have the nuts.

I also called large pre-flop raises or reraises– blatantly from AAxx – twice, with the wrong sort of hands. KKxx, even nicely co-ordinated, is not an Aces-cracking hand. When you toss in a hefty and ridiculous call on the flop as well, then you’re looking at a major money-loser.

So, two lumpy losing sessions out of three is a strong warning signal that I am getting sloppy. I have therefore written myself a prescription for tonight, which consists of tightening my calling of raises (although not tightening my own raises) and being highly focussed on position. Position, position , position. I find that when I start playing poorly nothing helps more than focussing on playing only with position.

The plus point from last night’s debacle was a session of $1/$2 five card stud. I played for under an hour and made $33, which kept the evening’s total losses to two digits. I must admit I hit some cards. Trip 9’s versus trip 8’s, and then a king-high straight, are about as good as it gets in short-handed five card stud don’t you think? But even without those monsters I would have been a couple of bets in front, and I really don’t know how you could lose money if you play this game with any concentration.

As I wrote on Friday, I enjoyed it immensely – working out hand values and strategy on the fly, as opposed to PLO where I generally know the right thing to do and just have to drum up the discipline to actually do it.

I think I will be using stud as a second table for a little while, alongside whatever is the best PLO game. I am not a great one for multi-tabling. I read these bloggers who play three or even four tables at once and I get a headache just thinking about it. I guess it is far more viable playing limit than pot or no limit poker, where one good or bad read can make an enormous difference.

Still, I have lately been running the multi-table tournaments as a second table until/unless I get deep into the field, while the stud last night was a life-saver and possibly stopped me going on genuine Omaha tilt.

I probably should play two tables regularly, in fact, because even playing one table I am still invariably doing some surfing or downloading a bit of music or chatting to one or more friends or whatever… Two tables may well reduce the attention I give to all that unprofitable stuff, and make for a proper head-screwed-on session of pokerpokerpoker.

I am really psyched up to play some good poker tonight. I need to, and the pressure is on somewhat, because my bankroll has been seriously thinned down in the past few days. I withdrew a small chunk on Friday to help fund my weekend away, lost a similar chunk last night, and today have bitten the bullet and withdrawn enough to send my ex-girlfriend some money I owe her.

In case I gave the impression (with the ‘Smoking, Booze and Shagging’ post) that I am utterly shallow, I should state that I love and care about my ex so deeply that words don’t suffice, and I sometimes well up a bit when I think about her. Actually I don’t truly think I owe her the money (complicated story). but I’m not prepared to argue about it and spoil the way that we feel about one another now.

Anyways, the bankroll is supposed to grow such that I can pay for a bargain bucket Greek holiday in July while still keeping it above my designated minimum. The last few days have set that aim back a little, but I am not too worried. Especially since I often play somewhat better when the bankroll is slightly pressured, compared to when I can afford to be a little more blasé.

That’s all for today. Just let me at the tables…