Thirteen hundred words

Before I forget, kudos to Double A’s (http://doubleas.blogspot.com/) for this perceptive comment:

“Loose Aggressive players like to outplay their opponents, but often fail to realize that folding is sometimes the best way to outplay someone by not paying them off.”

So, I have three days to catch up on. The house-sitting continues to be fun; the charming little cat I am also looking after is a pleasant bonus! Otherwise, a lot of life sucks. The debt management thing is underway, and I now have to deal with my creditors’ reactions to it; one arsey and one supportive so far.

And I simply cannot work out what is the right thing to do regarding The Girl. The following thoughts swirl around my head like national lottery balls: I don’t want to hurt her; I might hurt her more in the future by quitting when things get too serious; I should chill out and enjoy the sex; sex is over-rated; I like time to myself; I enjoy spending time with her; I want more freedom… And so on and so on.

What do you think – is sex over-rated? I told my mate the other night that a lot of the time I just find it nerve-wracking and sweaty - and he said it sounded like cycling to work.

Poker is tied up in my feelings and whatever decision I make about The Girl. I want to play as much as humanly possible, and my time with her impacts on that quite seriously. Generally, it rules out weekends, and since my socialising has to be done during the working week I end up often playing only in the early hours, then being tired in the morning.

Let’s catch up, anyway. I played Tuesday after work and later after drinks… and Wednesday and Thursday I was off work sick - although not sick enough to stop me smoking like a bastard - so I played some goodly hours. Over the three days I played something like 14 hours (hard to be precise because I don’t always record whether or not I was two-tabling) and made 95 bucks. That’s pretty disappointing, but it ought to have been at least double really as I will explain.

I won’t go day by day, but game by game. Heads-up limit hold ‘em has continued to be good to me, and is a game that I enjoy and am fascinated by. Since starting proper records on Saturday I have made $102 in 9 hours, playing 50c/$1. I think that is pretty good. I have suffered some beatings since I last wrote: one to a guy better than me, one to a guy I consider evenly matched who had an insane run of cards, and last night to a scumbag who hit two crazy hands and then immediately left! I have so far continued to play even when I have been up against people who seem closely matched or better than me… Why? Well, pride (which is stupid), a desire to learn from them (which is good) and a belief that I can adjust to their game (which has generally proved correct in that I have recovered some of my losses in almost all cases).

Of course, the bulk of the winnings come from playing markedly inferior players, along with little runs of good cards – it is amazing how hot you can run in a heads-up game at times. So, the trick is to put the hours in and learn what you can while shuffling chips with the decent players, and beat up good on the weak guys when they come along. I just hope the weak guys keep coming along! It really is a beautiful, almost zen-like feeling when you are playing someone crap; betting, raising, trap-checking, calling, folding occasionally, all at light-speed, knowing that barring one of those runs of cards you are going to bust your opponent.

Regarding speed, I’m not always the quickest player out there, and a couple of people have ‘ordered’ me to play faster. One guy kept it up so much that after responding by ordering him to play slower, I eventually quit on him (he was better than me but I was ahead so that was nice). The other chap was amusing – it took me 17 minutes to bust him out of his $18, but he left before I could say ‘was that quick enough?’ I tend to avoid responding or getting into verbal jousts in these games, because I think a pissed-off opponent will become more aggressive and that’s rarely a good thing in heads-up.

Finally, I trawled 2+2 yesterday but heads-up play is in a forum called ‘Heads-up and Short-handed’ and the posts are 99% about 6-max tables. Those that talk about heads-up usually mean play that has got heads-up on the flop in one of those games… so there’s basically no useful stuff on there.

My other games? Well, I have played two and a half hours of five card stud, winning 20 bucks. I have also idly played in another PLO sit ‘n’ go – and despite being short stack with 6 players left, I went on to win it quite comfortably, never feeling in any danger. That makes 3 wins in a row, 10 first places in 30 tourneys, 17 cashes. I feel it is fair to say that I am the KING of PLO sit and goes. I really must start playing higher in them.

Howeve, the turd in the otherwise gleaming toilet bowl has been pot limit Omaha cash. I have found good games all three days; no huge stacks, not many aggressive opponents. Tuesday and Wednesday I turned 70 dollars in two hours of play. Yesterday ‘should’ have been at least as good, but in fact I lost $45.

$45 is not a big loss in such a game, by any means, but in the two largest pots that I played I got royally shafted. It takes me back to the early days of this blog, when I had a run of these bad beats. Yesterday’s crown jewels: I have AA in the blinds and have not raised. Only $5 in the pot when the flop comes A26. I make a milky bet, get raised, rub my hands (worried only about the two-flush) and raise back HUGE. This gambling Swedish bozo calls all-in for a pot of $104 (after rake) and he has 3457 for a pathetic NINE outs. 5 lands on the river and I am mortified. Did the maths and I was 73% to win plus 8% to tie.

The other one.. aw, hell you don’t want to read bad beat stories for chrissakes. Suffice to say I got a doofus to go all-in on the flop, making an $85 pot, and again he was a 3-1 underdog and again he hit.

I’m not crying or wailing in agony – I am just reeeeeal frustrated because I know I am playing really good poker at the moment, with a really good attitude, just focussing on making good decisions in good games, and I can’t help feeling I haven’t quite had the rewards I deserve. I’m restricting my PLO play to genuinely juicy games, and winning even ONE of those pots (or even the coin-flip for $50 later on) would have felt like a real validation of what I am doing.

I have grown the (pretty paltry) bankroll by $200 since I made a deposit 8 days ago, which at my stake levels is not bad. I just cannot stop thinking that it couldashoulda been $300 or more. However, I MUST stop thinking that when I am at the tables. I anticipate there being plenty of weakies around on the headsup tables over the weekend, and I intend to plunder my share of their money.