I have played around about 12,000 hands in that time and my results show that I have gone absolutely nowhere. I've won pots, I've lost pots, I've made good reads, I've tilted bits here and there. I've questioned my own confidence and ability in the game, I've questioned other's ability to play the game. But the net result is that I'm about $40 worse off than when I started the month of July. In reality I'm not even down, I'm on a completely even keel. The staking deal with Jonnyfish from Raise the River is still in effect and is now going to continue into a third month (thank you very much, Jonny).
I'm just looking at my pokergrapher graph which I thought would be fairly stable but in actual fact it is currently the most volatile I've ever seen it. In part this is down to me playing in stakes twice as big as the previous 81k hands, but the other factor must be the change in my play that I've experienced over the last month or so.
I'm not going to say that I've turned into some maniac nut job with no concept of discipline, but in terms of finding some aggression and being able to actually use, I'm virtually unrecognisable from before (take this in moderation though, I was a stone cold nit before). I'm starting to get my money in more with just a pair or making huge bets with bluffs. I'm not about to say that I'm playing the best poker I've ever played, that was during the month of June when I went on a 17 buyin tear. What I will say, however, is that I'm playing the most advanced poker I've ever played. I'm thinking a lot more about what my players are holding and what they intend to do with their hands. I'm thinking a lot more about how I can manipulate situations to my advantage without any consideration to my own holding. In short, I'm evolving as a player, but it is a very painful process. Some of the things I'm trying simply don't work at the 20NL stakes. And, of course, sometimes I just get things completely wrong and end up learning a valuable but expensive lesson.
I'd really like to think that in terms of what I've actually made from the last two months can be written off (well, it has to be because I've not earned anything for me or my backer), but what I've gained personally from it will do me a lot of good in the future. It has to.
The last blog was a fairly fed up one. But after the break I've come back with an interesting new attitude. When I lose a hand I've not even been shrugging my shoulders. I've just be reviewing the hand and trying to determine whether or not I made the correct decision. That's all poker is about. The result is out of your hands. As long as you made the right decision then, in the very long term, your results will reflect that.
Here's the best example I can give you. In one hand I flopped a set of queens and got it all in against aces for a $65 pot. Not the biggest pot I've ever played but the most I've personally had to invest in a pot. An ace came on the turn and I lost $32. "Career defining hands" (as I like to call them) have caused me to go on attitude tilt. No actual tilt in a game and lose loads of money, but just a complete loss of confindence then not playing for a couple of weeks. This time, however, I reviewed the hand, saw that I'd played it as best I could and moved on. I ended the session up $40 through some brilliant play when spotting an opportunity to overshove the river and get a call and, more impressively, calling someone down to the river for all my chips with just top pair on a very ugly board - I just knew he didn't have it and went with my gut instinct. I should have finished the sessions over $100 up but I didn't. I didn't seem to care though. By far the most important thing going off in my head was that I'd played one of the most focused sessions I'd ever played and played it brilliantly.
And that, folks, is poker.
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