As you were. More or less.

Hello fans.

Sorry about a lack of updates. I’m not dead, contrary to the rumours. Sometimes I just don’t feel like blogging and the last month I’ve felt like that. And this could be just a quick update before I disappear into the poker darkness.

There hasn’t been any point in blogging anyway because the story’s the same as it has been for the last five months; a slow bleed of the main artery. Since I last blogged I’ve put in a fair few sessions totalling 8,000 hands and I’ve lost $16 which is a loss of $0.48 an hour. As you can imagine it’s been near torture. I’ve gone on winning streaks, winning maybe half a buy in every time, followed by losing streaks doing exactly the same thing. The small comfort I can take from it is that my theoretical is plus $27.41 which means, I think, that I’m not running too well.

If I were to summarise the last six weeks it would be this.

I’ve been big-hand dead. I can’t remember been able to play big pots for full stacks with the nuts since, well, ever. My draws haven’t been coming in and when I do get a sniff of a big hand people have folded on the flop. There’s probably leaks in my betting patterns that might answer that but I can’t find them. I thought it might be that I’m playing too tight but I am playing with a 22 vpip 15 pfr which doesn’t suggest I’m being tight. I think I’m just not hitting hands, which is fair enough I suppose.

I’m also completely missing flops which is getting rather frustrating because, as Tuff_Fish once said, “hell, everyone just wants to call me like crazy.” So I’ve been having to show real discipline not to just fire off chips into a wasted pot when people are not going to fold. If there is one part of my game that needs vast improvement it’s this part, I’m not good at reading when players might be likely to fold to aggression. When I decide this kid’s got nothing I almost always get it shamefully wrong and have to fold on the turn/river with my tail tucked between my legs. But when you’ve not hitting any hands and getting frustrated you just push yourself to try and expand your game. Bad idea.

The culmination of these things leads to hands like this.

***** Hand History for Game 1294763647 *****
$20.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, November 28, 10:23:01 ET 2008
Table Alpha (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: elbraxo ( $8.36 USD )
Seat 3: furious21111 ( $20.00 USD )
Seat 5: RTRFelix ( $20.00 USD )
Seat 8: rapidrollin ( $3.39 USD )
Seat 10: JEGAGNE66 ( $18.71 USD )
furious21111 posts small blind [$0.10 USD].
RTRFelix posts big blind [$0.20 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to RTRFelix [ Qd Qc ]
rapidrollin calls [$0.20 USD]
JEGAGNE66 calls [$0.20 USD]
elbraxo folds
furious21111 raises [$0.90 USD]
RTRFelix calls [$0.80 USD]
rapidrollin folds
JEGAGNE66 calls [$0.80 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Kc, Qh, 3c ]
furious21111 bets [$1.60 USD]
RTRFelix calls [$1.60 USD]
JEGAGNE66 calls [$1.60 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 9h ]
furious21111 checks
RTRFelix bets [$6.00 USD]
JEGAGNE66 calls [$6.00 USD]
furious21111 folds
** Dealing River ** [ Jh ]
RTRFelix checks
JEGAGNE66 bets [$10.11 USD]
RTRFelix calls [$10.11 USD]
JEGAGNE66 wins $39.22 USD from main pot
JEGAGNE66 shows [6h, Kh ]

I know I should be able to find a fold here and if my confidence was high and I was playing well I would. But when five months of frustration builds up, poker finds a way to make you lash out for just one hand, in the worst spot at the worst time.

But I will keep plugging away.

I’ve been playing at the 0.10/0.20 stakes for five months now and have so far lost $78 in 23K hands. In the same time with identical stats at 0.05/0.10 stakes I’ve won $38 in 1,400 hands. Is the difference in quality between the two levels that great or am I just running through variance. If I knew that…