FEBRUARY - UPDATE #2

With the month drawing to a close and with no plans to play a great deal of poker, today or tomorrow, I'm going to throw out my monthly update. For anyone who has been following the blog, it's clear that my live game sessions have been good overall with just one, Sunday afternoon, losing session at The Empire to report. In retrospect, in fact even during and very soon after that session, I knew I should never have sat down at the table. It occured the day after I had won £120 at The Empire but my mind was all wrong. Here are four reasons why I shouldn't have sat down:

1) I had just had quite a few bad losing sessions online the night before AND in the morning prior to leaving.
2) The tail end of the previous live session had me playing badly and I felt I had just thrown away £60 stupidly.
3) I left the house in a resentful mood and mainly because my family were driving me nuts - not a good reason to go and play live poker.
4) I bought in for £130 (my live session winnings for the month, at the time) which is shortstacked and not good.
5) I effectively told myself that it was "only" £130 and that I could "afford" to lose it if the worst came to the worst. (It's only going one way after this way of thinking.)

Needless to say, after a stale kind of session I threw in about £100 while chasing a flush draw and it didn't improve. Strangely enough, even while playing I kept telling myself that my heart wasn't really in it and that I should leave but I never listened properly to that voice.

NEVER put down a "disposable" stack at the poker table. It will inevitably soon be disposed of.

If the inner voice is very strong and is telling you to leave - THEN LEAVE!

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Thankfully, a very welcome 2nd place finish at The Fox in their £38 Saturday evening freezeout event swung my live bankroll back in the right direction. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of my online antics and there is no doubt that the online game has become a lot tougher. The good players, of course, are still hanging around and the newer players generally seem to know what they're doing. The survival of the fittest has certainly meant that there has been a decline in the number of casual and fun players coming in and as a result, my table-selection process has become super-fussy. But even then, it just aint no walk in the park.

February has been a frustrating, yo-yo like, but ultimately break-even month. Generally speaking, I gained $400 in the first week then lost $400 in the second week. Then I gained $400 in the third week but then lost around $300 in the final week. My balance presently stands at a $100 profit for the month but, with this including a rakeback payment and a return of $45 after bubbling a Masters seat in the Masters Stage 3 satellite, it's a fairly "hollow" kind of victory I can tell you.

Remember that the figures below might be a little out-of-whack when considering previous updates but this would be due to the ever-changing exchange rate. Therefore, the figures should be looked upon as being approximate: 
   

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ONLINE: FEBRUARY  +£60 /  YEAR: -£460

LIVE: FEBRUARY +£740  /  YEAR: +£1700

TOTAL: FEBRUARY +£800  /  YEAR: +£1240
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At the moment I'm still in Bournemouth so, shortly, it's a coach ride back to London and then tonight, it's a meal out with the family so I doubt I'll be playing online today. Let's just march on to March and see if we can turn that horrible red figure to green by the end of next month eh?

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ONWARDS AND UPWARDS AND BEYOND BABY!!