Since you've been gone.

Well, since I've been gone actually.

Yes, just cutting and pasting from the forum posts was a bit shit so I abandoned that pretty sharpish. If you do want to read through my current staking adventure then you can read all about it here in my staking forum post at Raise the River.

I will, of course paraphrase here though.

For about 4,000 I performed awfully. I was running at about -10bb per 100 hands which is unheard of for me. It wasn't down to the perceived pressure of playing at higher stakes either (although, again, to suggest that there should be any pressure at 20nl is laughable in itself). Being staked has really helped me to lose my sense of the concept that I'm gambling with real money. This hasn't had a detrimental (or, indeed, beneficial) impact on my game. It just means that when I finish a session down I don't feel depressed or down hearted; I can get over the bad sessions quite easily. My stats are still about the same and I'm not taking random coin flips or being really aggressive. It's simply improved my overall disposition when playing and thinking about poker. Since this is my own blog I'm to plug the fact that you can hear a little bit more about this particular issue in the new Raise the River Podcast (holds up ipod, gives a cheesy grin and teeth sparkle).

Anyway, after my massive heater at 10NL just before getting staked, I went through a bad spell. Surprisingly no bad beats at all (I can't remember the last one in fact), just premium hand after premium hand losing. At one point AA, KK and QQ combined had made me -$100. I mean I was eventually getting my money in bad after they had been cracked so it was pretty gruesome at some points. To begin with I coped with it well and minimised loses, but after the 20th or so time I did have a couple of sessions when I started to tilt. I thought I was starting to reach a stage in my poker progression where I thought I was somewhat tilt proof. But poker always has that habit of biting your testicles off when you least expect it.

After 4,000 and being down $120 I was seriously starting to worry that I might spunk off the whole $200 staking investment. Then, in just one session I recovered $95 of it.

I'd been finding that playing TAG with the usual hands wasn't working. I think I explained this in the podcast. Say you have AK and you raise 3x preflop. One guy calls. The flop comes A65 with two suits. He checks and you bet about 2/3 pot. By now you've invested 10% of your stack. Bang he check raises you to three times your bet. So now you're having to make a decision. If you call you've put in about 35-45% of your stack so there's more in the pot than you have, and you're going to face a tough decision on the turn. If you shove the check-raise you're basically putting yourself in with top pair which is how most people at micro stakes go bust. This is a situation that I seem to be facing more and more these days and the decision is always super razor thin.

So I gave up doing this and played ultra passive. I called, called, called until I made a hand. It controlled the pots nicely and I was able to speculate with some really naff hands in position - yes, I was even limp-calling (KILL HIM!).

But as soon as I switched gears I hauled in four buy-ins (admittedly help by flopping 886 with 66 in my hand and two full stacks getting all their money in).

I played against convention and my instinct and for one brief session I killed the games.

I've been slightly up since the one monster session so my staking bankroll now reads at $191, just $9 down.

The question is should I keep on with this passive calling style and call it "adapting to the games I'm playing in" or do I stay stubbornly to the general principle that TAG works at all the low limits and revert back to it?

I think I'll leave it there for now. I have other things to write about but I think I've bored you enough for one night.

Just one final thing. Huge congrats to RTR's Mair 38 for winning the APAT team even in Blackpool. Kudos also to Lou Saban who finished in 10th and applause to the RTR team who finished second.