Failing the challenge

The 25 hour challenge is really not going well. Thanks to snooker, my immense social popularity and good looks, and being a little tired and ill lately, I have only managed ten hours in the seven days since I began. Oops.

On the other hand, I am winning very nicely in those ten hours. I don't know what to make of my results lately. They are very good, and I have been playing mostly PLO8 and mostly Party. It seems like I can make a ludicrous hourly rate (in proportion to the size of the stakes) but of course the sample is still small. In fact, I need to catch up on importing almost a week's worth of hands into Poker Tracker Omaha, just to to see exactly how I stand.

I am definitely going to be moving up to bigger games at Party in the very near future. There seem to be so many people who don't 'get' certain ideas about playing PLO8 and I don't expect that to change enormously at the next level.

Besides that guff, I am realising more and more the extent to which being a winning cash game player is about emotional control. When I am in that zone of detachment - able to withstand the losses and accept the gambles with equanimity, just keep making right decisions - I feel I can very rarely lose. I think most of my significant mistakes in poker - the vast majority in fact - have occurred as a direct result of over-emotional decision-making. Subtle tilt, in other words. I bet the same is true of you.