Tuesday, June 5, 2007

New Resolve

So tonight is my triumphant return to the world of online poker. Well not so triumphant, but I suppose I'll get to that later. I've made a new committment to play some cash games...I've always been successful at the lower limits and I think I need to do something to get off of the deep depression that is constant failure in MTTs.

So I've decided to play 5-10k hands at $25 NL and track my progress from there. I have over 30 buy-ins for that level and that should be sufficient to keep me from going busto, though I'm putting a stop loss on myself of 3 buy-ins in one night. That means actually getting stacked 3 times as I'll be constantly reloading to stay at max buy-in if I dip below. I do think I'm a winning player at this level but I've never really tracked any results and to be honest, if I get a couple thousand hands into this and I'm not winning I may have to call this off because that will be far too depressing for me...to have my roll slowly grinded away in this manner.

I also want to focus on cash games more because I enjoy the idea that you're not winning or losing at any point. If you run out of chips you just reload because the goal isn't to outrun everyone else it's just to make the best decisions to make the most money...in a sense it's a more pure form of poker. It seems to help me deal with beats because I don't have the pain of bubbling on the edge of the money multiple times in a row, getting close to my goal and failing multiple times in a row is something that is sure to set me on tilt...so at least that can't happen in a cash game.

Now on to how I actually played tonight.

I think I actually played fairly well with a few minor missteps but nothing major. I did get stacked with KK on a J 7 3 flop...I'm not too sure I can get away from my hand there (opp. had 77). I posted the hand on 67suited so hopefully I'll get some feedback to see if I was a total asshat in the hand or if I'm just doomed there. I had a few hands where I made some opponents pay dearly for their draws but they got there so I can't be overly worried about those hands. I let myself get bluffed once, but he did make a pretty convincing play at the pot and most of the time I think I made a good fold. I managed to stack a guy with AA vs. KK all-in preflop. Other than that there weren't really any interesting hands. I logged 316 hands during the evening (all $25 full ring) and I was playing 19% of the flops, but I only managed to win 6% of the hands so I really wasn't running too great. Looking back at a few hands now I think I may have played a few marginal hands too passively...that's going to be something that I need to work on.

Roll = $857.86
$25 Hands = 316
Profit = -31.6
BB/100 = -40BB

1 comment:

Alan aka RecessRampage said...

sbrugby said it best on HSP when he laid down A-10 on A-7-x board against Paul Wasicka... "I've been bluffed before and I'm sure I'll be bluffed again."

We all do and you can't worry about that. Cash game, IMO, is a good way to keep your bankroll healthy while taking shots in tournaments. MTTs lends itself to bigger swings in terms of not winning over multiple buy-ins but getting a big score, etc. Cash games on the other hand will continue to fund your account as long as you are a winning player.

Good luck at the tables!