APRIL - UPDATE #4

For regular readers, who plough through this load of old twaddle of mine, it won't have escaped your notice that April has been a poor month for me. It's supposed to be a month that symbolises hope and new beginnings but, to paraphrase TS Eliot's "The Waste Land", it has ended up being the cruellest month of all and is my first losing month of the year.

It's the online game where I have suffered and as a result I've pulled the plug, cashed out all monies, and won't be grinding the cash games any time soon. All I have left is a satellite ticket for the final stage of entry to PKRL6 and a small rakeback payment due in early May. Anyway, brace yourself, for here is my latest update:

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ONLINE: APRIL  -£700 /  YEAR: -£350

LIVE: APRIL +£70  /  YEAR: +£1540

TOTAL: APRIL -£630   /  YEAR: +£1190

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As you can see, my online results do not make very pleasant reading and I've now been dragged back down into the red for the year. In retrospect, you could argue that I should have stopped and taken a break till May when I was down to break-even point but I didn't and ended up playing badly and squandering another £350.  It's going to be a while before I start any cash game routine online and if I do deposit over the next months or so it will be for one-off MTTs and/or the occasional attempt to qualify for meaningful tournaments through satellites.

Anyway, let's be positive, it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to work out that live games are where I'm making the money, hence the reason for the underline. The £1/£1 games (not at The Fox) have been good for me recently and The Empire £1/£2 games tend to be good as well (although mishaps do occur). Small buy-in MTTs still remain the lottery/donkaments/fun night out that they've always been and being a bit of a gambler I guess I won't be able to resist the odd pop at these. I think this is fine. As I've said before, live games get me out the house meeting people and make me appreciate living in the great capital city of London; it's surely a better way of playing my poker than sitting on my arse and having the missus complaining about my sedentary lifestyle every half an hour! It's also good timing with the summer months approaching.

The odd medium buy-in events are also tempting and I'm still debating whether to have a crack at the £160 freezeout tomorrow at The Fox at 3PM where you get 15000 starting chips and a 30 minute clock. I hesitate entering these, though, because they still have the lottery element about them and dropping around £200 cos the villain hits his hand on the river or because I had to go for a 50/50 coinflip is always going to hurt a little bit. Still, this is kind of what tournaments are all about.

In saying all that, I'm looking at The Fox tournament schedule now and notice an interesting looking £58 "deepstack" event that starts at 3PM today. For this, you get 10000 chips and a 25 minute clock which IS slightly better than their £38 Saturday freezeout where you get 8000 starting chips and a 20 minute clock. Hmm, decisions decisions.

Any road, in my next post or two, I'll let you know how I get on if I do decide to go for the £58 event AND I'll let you know my decision with how I plan to show my profits and losses from now on.

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R.I.P. APRIL - LONG LIVE THE MONTH OF MAY!!