Stop me if you've heard this one before

Jesus, but I am fed up with writing the same things and telling myself the same things over and over and over again and not taking any damn notice!

So I am supposed to be basing my poker on three little words: Game. See. Lection.

And am I doing so? Am I fuck.

Last night I managed to lose the $100 that I nearly lost the previous night, and I don't even have the alcohol excuse. I simply DO NOT BELONG in Omaha games that are full of people who like to bet the pot on flop, turn and river, hand after hand; people who are prepared to gamble that you will fold and if you don't fold then their bottom two might be good or they might hit the four-high flush draw; people who when you do gather up the courage to fight back may well turn out to have the stone cold nuts. I do not have the skills, the judgement, the bottle, nor the BANKROLL to go up against these sort of players.

So, when I find myself in such a game, I should make like a tree, and get outta there. Not sit there like a weak-tight rabbit caught in headlights, too proud and too stupid and too damn STUCK to get out of my fucking chair.

So I lost a hundred at PLO. It could have been different if my first big hand had not seen my get outdrawn as a 60% favourite against two opponents, for an $83 pot.

Meanwhile, I won three out of four headsup games, and I really think that with the current pathetic state of my bankroll (more a banksliver) I need to concentrate on playing those. I think I have now played enough of them to know that at the lowest levels I can genuinely win 6 or 7 out of 10 on a consistent basis. (I've won 11 out of the last 15 and have had runs of 9 in a row and 7 in a row). The returns doing that are not spectacular, but they sure beat an hourly rate that has lately been well into the negative in Omaha. With an increased focus on them, not treating them as side games, I might be able to do a notch better as well.

It is certainly a great feeling a lot of the time playing them, as I play a lot of very bad players who I guess must be novices. I generally have a sense of an opponent's weakness fairly quickly, and can usually predict how I am going to win the match: with this guy it might be simply betting the pot all the time, with that guy it might be trapping when I flop something decent, with him over there it may be that he will call an all-in with Ace high. And so on.

I can sincerely say that I usually lose these only when I get a little unlucky on a big confrontation, and that only about three times ever have I thought my opponent was good enough to really trouble me. Whereas I have played a ton of people who I would happily play all day, every day, for as long as they liked.

And that’s enough poker talk for now. Its one of those mornings where I wonder how on earth I managed to win $1200 in three months… and then think, well I did and so I can do it again.

Don’t want to think about it any more, so here is a list of my entire DVD ‘collection’:
8 Mile, Die Another Day, The World Is Not Enough, Roger Dodger, Open Hearts, Last Orders, High Fidelity, Totally Bill Hicks, Heat, Glengarry Glen Ross, Spiderman