Live Session #66: Safe & Sound

Yep, it may have been a "safe and sound" live session tonight but still a results-orientated one I'm afraid. I arrived at The Empire at about 9PM and sat myself down with a £250 stack and at what seemed like a fairly tough table.

Key Hand #1
It's virtually the first hand of the night and after reading in "How To Play Great Poker" that you should always fold 78 in early position, I choose to limp with it in early position and it's limped or folded all round. The flop comes 3 4 5 and I check under the gun. Mid-position player throws in £11 as does late-position guy and, with the pot offering fair odds plus good implied odds it's probably worth a cheeky call, but as it was early days and I don't want to spew so early, I fold. As I plead for the 6 NOT to come on the turn - bosh! - the bloody six gets turned and placed neatly on the board, taunting me and pointing at me and laughing into the bargain! Mid-position guy throws in £30 and it's called and yet more chips go flying in when the harmless red jack falls on the river. I'm kind of pissed off when pocket 3s is shown for a set of 3s which takes it down. Yep, I woulda had the nuts and won a packet. Still, I tell myself not to let it trouble me and move on.

Key Hand #2

With that hand still lingering in my consciousness a bit and with it still being early doors I'm in the SB and look down at 7 J of spades. It's folded to the button who limps in as do I but then the BB elects to up it to £7. The button calls so I complete the betting as I feel kinda priced in. I elect to play my flush draw passively by just calling the small bet on the flop and I just choose to call the bet on the turn as well when a gutshot materializes. I then miss my outs and fold as another bet goes in on the river from the BB and I'm left feeling kinda stupid playing 7 J from the SB in the first place.

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As I muck more marginal-type hands and see that they would have hit beautifully, I start telling myself not to get frustrated and to just play my normal game; also, I tell myself I must get up and go for a stroll if I need to. Then I look down at QQ. I'm out of position but get chips into the pot  - right up until that damn ace hits the river and I'm forced to muck when the villain reaches for his chips to bet. I just KNOW he had it! I tell myself NOT to repeat what happened at The Vic when I tilted after I lost with QQ when I was also forced to fold when overcards hit the board. Thankfully, I do start to feel calm and in control. I then win a nice £65 pot when I hit a 4-outer on the river to make a straight - and this is followed by my jackpot hand.

Key Hand #3

I've just changed seats to get myself on the left of a tricky American player who was on my immediate left and who seems to know what he's doing. About 30 minutes later, I have about £190 in front of me and I look down at AK in early position and throw in a £12 bet. (Standard at this table.) I get FOUR callers. The flop comes A K x and it's happy days. I make a £35 bet and it's folded to Mr Tricky American who just flat-calls. The turn is a jack and I'm pretty sure I still have the winning hand as he looks really reluctant so I throw in something like £70 which he also ends up calling. The river bricks so I throw in the rest of my stack which is about another 70 or 80 quid. He tanks for a bit so I'm sure I have him beat - and then I'm very pleased when he throws in his chips to make the call. I show him the bad news and he says he had A J.  He goes very quiet for the rest of the session after this.

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With a £400 stack I then unfortunately go into results-orientated thinking mode and tell myself that it would be really nice not to fall below £350 and to go home with a £100 profit. So what happens? Yep, I let my stack fall to exactly that amount and at 11PM, after a 2 hour session, leave the casino with the £100 profit. What an arse!

Now non-poker players and results-orientated players may applaud a decision to leave while in profit but there is more to poker than this and I KNOW this is wrong and is something I've actually got to rid myself of when I start afresh in the new year. Results-orientated thinking of this nature will only make you a break-even or marginal winning player at best as it's a very conservative, safe and cosy mentality which Mike Caro has termed "manufacturing wins". I've said it before and I'll say it again: to "crush" or to be a "proper" winning player, you have to do away with any sort of stop-loss mentality at the table (unless the table is super-tough - in which case you should probably just get up leave) and that's another leak I really need to sort out if I'm going to be a contender.

NOVEMBER - Update #11

Regular readers, who have joined me on this bumpy journey of mine, will already know that I made the decision not to reveal my exact results after my last update at the end of October. I've mentioned the reasons for this quite a few times (bringing extra pressure on myself, playing too tight, engaging in results orientated thinking etc) so I won't harp on about it anymore. Nevertheless, it wouldn't be much of a blog if I didn't write about how the month has gone in general so here goes:

Both online and live poker have followed a similar pattern this month with both starting off averagely but hitting a nosedive towards the end. The little online poker that I have played this month was proving fairly promising when I felt I was playing well and when my balance hit a $300 profit last weekend. Unfortunately, "One More Hand Syndrome" hit me and rather than take a break or even cash out the winnings, greed took hold of me and I deservedly went on a bad run and had the profit wiped out and then some.  If I was honest about this, I'd have to say that bad play may have had a role in this as well. (Although losing a buy-in at $200nl on an all-in with JJ v. QQ on a low dry flop was the trigger that caused the insta-cashout.)

Live poker was a similar story results-wise. I started off reasonably well enough but then had a minor hiccup while intoxicated during a session. Just as I felt I was turning a corner with a break-even and a small winning session, I made a schoolboy error when I just couldn't throw away KK to someone who made a full-house with their 56o. I then may have played solidly in my last session of the month, which definitely brought a little light back, but I am still annoyed with myself over the fact that I let my guard down both with the above mentioned hand and the donk-plays I made online. Poker really can pull the rug from under you - very suddenly!  

Results-wise then, it's been another losing month both at the live and online game - with the consolation being that the losses are fairly small. On a positive note though, as I've mentioned in other posts, I feel that I've gained quite a lot in other ways. First off, apart from learning a few lessons for next year, the idea of banishing results-orientated thinking while at the table AND the importance of always being on your guard at the same time has really hit home. Getting up from the table/computer and actually taking a stroll or a short break once in a while, to inject logic (as Tendler would say) would, I think, have saved me hundreds this month. Just getting up and having a stroll once in a while, therefore, will be something I'll need to do more of in future to make sure my head is in the right place at the table.

Secondly, possibly as a result of the poker books I have been reading recently, I have definitely incorporated more aggression into my game and, certainly over the month of November, can thoroughly see that this has brought benefits to my game. "Decide To Play Great Poker" by Annie Duke and John Vorhaus has been a really good read with "Poker Math That Matters" by Owen Gaines also bringing in an interesting mathematical angle to the fore. In fact, while I had originally thought the maths in Owen Gaines book would be a breeze, I am now arriving at mathematical ideas that are really quite dense and definitely require attentive study. Some of these ideas may seem to be taking the maths too far and may not even seem entirely necessary (like counting the combination of different hands that may be in an opponent's range and then calculating our equity against that range and then working with those numbers to calculate the EV etc) but it does show to what level you can take the game to if you wish to put in the effort.

Finally, the beginning of the month proved to be a nightmare at work. It may be easy to blame this for my cloudy thinking at the table but, there again, if I felt that work issues would interfere with my thinking at the table then I shouldn't have made the choice to play in the first place.

With December virtually upon us now, and with three months of poor results behind me, I'll consider this to be the home straight where I feel almost like I'm on a damage limitation exercise. I know this isn't the greatest mental attitude when approaching the game in the last month of the year but I guess if that's the sort of bed I've laid then I may as well lay in it. Work-wise, I absolutely detest the last two weeks leading up to Christmas - it's always freezing cold and dark, it's often wet and miserable - and as a consequence, with the excitement of Christmas thrown in, the students are usually bouncing off the walls!

I know, all negative stuff, I reckon I need a good positive live poker session tonight to give me that boost. If I do go ahead, I'll let you know how I get on...

AA Versus The Mighty "Doyle Brunson Hand"

So with just a few PKR Points to play around with, I thought I'd buy a few cheap tickets to some of their "Phase" Tournies. These are fairly low buy-in affairs that play as a 10 man sit 'n' go; you get promoted or relegated between each "Phase" according to how you place (or totally eliminated if you do badly). The idea is to claw your way up to the final phase to get a chance to win a hundred dollars or two. With Phase 4 being just a $23.80 entry and Phase 5 (final phase) costing just $64.40 to buy-in direct, they're probably not bad value to enter directly at Phase 4 or 5 as a lot of micro-stakes casual players, who have worked their way up, perceive those tables to be the "dizzy heights" of poker. 

Unfortunately, they can sometimes take an age to fill up with those final stages rarely getting filled at off-peak times and rarely reaching a full table at the best of times either. You can even easily wait over an hour or two for the lower Phase levels to fill as well. Anyway, to cut a long story short, as my current balance is on zero, I thought I'd buy a few early stage tickets. Things have been going ok as I've just managed to progress from Phase 2 to Phase 3 and I've also got an extra Phase 3 ticket as well (value $8.90 x 2). A top two place at a Phase 2 game will promote you to Phase 3 so the result of this screenshot is irrelevant as far as results go but I thought I'd just plop it up as it shows my pocket rockets getting smashed by the might "Doyle Brunson" hand:

 

Lessons Learned For Phase 6

For the reader who dared trawl through the lengthy history of my poker journey so far way back in December of last year, it wouldn't have escaped notice that the lifetime path through this great game we call poker can be broken up into phases. For me, it is my belief that these phases are leading up to something more and more meaningful and I thoroughly believe that each one is a kind of stepping stone in making me stronger and better as a player. Phases 1-4 have all been explained in that long post while Phase 5 has unraveled over this year and is documented in this here blog of mine. Needless to say, some lessons have been learned and, for the record, I'm going to outline them right here.


Four big meta-game changes will be made to my game in 2012 (The Start of Phase 6):

1.  Phase 6 will begin in 2012 when my new-found attitude towards money will hopefully see my game taking off in a new and more fulfilling direction. This will involve a much less precious, almost indifferent, attitude towards my bankroll with the idea of cutting out my results-orientated way of thinking which was getting in the way of my game. These were small issues that I allowed to creep into my head but which I have now come to realise are poisons that no half-decent poker player should allow to fester in their consciousness.

2.  The consumption of alcohol while at the table will either be cut back drastically or cut out altogether. This problem has made a huge difference to my bottom line this year and my game can only improve without it. I guess you could say that as an amateur player, having the odd beer and getting sozzled at the table once in a while shouldn't be a problem - BUT, as I will be considering myself a "semi-pro" next year, excessive alcohol intake at the tables will just have to STOP.

3.  Online poker will be much less of a focus for me in 2012. This year, after paying around $2500 in rake alone and barely breaking even, something is telling me that my fortune is not going to be made on the virtual felt. The reality (at higher levels anyway) is that it has now become the domain of "maths wizards" who play huge volumes in bulk (multi-tabling) and who have, as a unit, thanks to 3rd party software tools, pretty much monopolized the market. The result is that the shark to fish ratio has tipped so heavily in favour of the sharks that it's just harder to even find the fish anymore let alone take their money before someone else does.

Also, in comparison to the live game where you can take things easy and study various tells, online poker is a bit like playing poker on crack. It is super-convenient and easy to settle into; it always has the allure that manages to call you back and it always seems to convince you that the big win you are hoping for is just around the corner.  Still, while it is true that I will no doubt head back to it, I think I'll need a more stable strategy than making endless cycles of deposits and withdrawals  - which is what I always just end up doing. It may even be that I just stick to satellites in future, but I'll see.

4.  In 2012, my results will now be my business and my business only (and this will also likely mean the end of this blog). As I also mentioned in a previous post, giving out results is just an ego-driven way of proving to the world that you are a winning player - but, I have since realised, it is not the world that you have to prove this to - the world didn't ask to see the results and it's none of their business anyway! Profits and losses are considerations for the individual player and the individual player only.

Also, giving out results left right and centre can only bring unnecessary pressure on yourself. When you're winning, you're just proving what you set out to do in the first place but when you're losing or are on a losing run, you are forced to tell others of your loss and it's just too easy to make yourself out to be a victim - and that's not a very good state to be in. Furthermore, it is easy to perceive that non-poker players, who know nothing of variance, may actually see you as a loser - and just that thought alone can also mean quite a bit of a hit to the ol' ego. So, yeh, best to keep results to yourself.     

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These are the four main changes I will be making to my game that do not involve actual hand to hand combat. That area will be improved by in-game practice and studying the game as part of the ongoing process. (I am currently reading some very useful books that I recently ordered off Amazon.) So there you have it. These are the main things that Phase 5 has taught me and what I intend to do about it when I launch into Phase 6 next year. In an upcoming post I'll review the month of November and clear the way for the final home straight that is the month of December. Will it be a crawl to the line or a sprint finish?

The answer, my friend, may only be held in my buttocks or, perhaps, may be blowing in the wind that contains the gas that just emanated from between my buttocks.

Until next time...

Uncle Wobble.

Live Session #65: Listening To The Right Voice

Well, rather than take myself off to South Kensington to the Bluff@The Mint this evening, I thought I'd stick to familiar territory and play some £1/£2 at The Empire instead - and, as is often the case after I do badly at other venues, managed to sit in a comfortable game and come away from the place with a tidy profit. I really do just LOVE this place right now. It wasn't a huge amount mind you (not enough to wipe out the recent demons) but enough to give me a vital confidence boost. Also, another good point was that rather than listening to the call of Bacchus to join him for another pint of lager (I only had the one), I listened to the more gentle voice that said (after about two and half hours of play) "cash out and go home."

I began with £250 and sat down at a fresh table that was just starting up. Luckily for me, the good players were on my right while the weaker players were on my left. The money mainly came from value-betting the calling stations to my left (one of whom was the most clueless player I have ever come across in a live game) who seemed happy enough to contribute to my stack. At one point I was up to a £380 stack but after failing to hit a few draws, and after a player on a table transfer decided to plonk himself down on my immediate left with well over £800 in chips, I chose that that was probably the time to take my leave. I did consider going on to play at Bluff@The Mint but thought it best to go for the conservative option and head for home with some winnings instead.

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As I mentioned in my last post, I think that December will mainly be about putting up the shutters or, at the very least, slowing down to a crawl. Results-wise, although not catastrophic, the last three months have really not been very good. Thankfully these have been fairly small loses overall but if last year is anything to go by, dropping profits in the later months of the year does seem to be a habit of mine - maybe it has something to do with the winter season approaching or maybe the reasons go to an even deeper psychological level. I'm not sure.

Whatever the reason for these poor results, it is certainly one step backwards on the financial front. However, as I've gestured towards in other posts quite a few times, I do feel that I have recently taken my game into the next level in so many different ways and I feel I've actually taken two or three steps forward in the developmental department; meaning that I'm very hopeful about next year. Poker really does work in mysterious ways.

Like last year then, when I started the blog and set out my stall for this year's journey, December will be about looking forward and planning for 2012. I'll probably not play so much poker next month but will mainly be reading up, studying and reflecting on the many things I've learned in 2011 so that I have a greater opportunity to achieve better things in the poker world in 2012. This may not be visibly recognizable in the form of the winning of high-profile MTTs - and I really can't see myself being much of a force on the online front - but it would definitely be nice to be a more feared and respected regular on the cash game circuit around London. (Well, maybe just at The Empire.)

My Second Biggest Leak

For non-poker players out there, a "leak" refers to that part of your poker game which you do over and over again but which will lose you money in the long run. For a lot of players, this could include things done during hand-to-hand play at the table like playing too many hands in early position, defending the blinds too much, over-valuing pocket pairs or raising the wrong amount in certain situations etc etc. However, there are also other leaks that have less to do with hand-to-hand play but are more psychological like playing when tired, playing because there is nothing else to do, tilting too easily or playing with scared money. These are the leaks that make you screw up at the table and actually cost you more so it's important to have these well and truly plugged.

In an article, dated some time ago, in Bluff Europe magazine (author unknown), these two facets of the game were termed the "micro game" and the "macro game" respectively. Now, personally speaking, my efforts to reduce "micro-game" leaks mainly comes in the form of reading books - and I think my "micro-game" has certainly come a long way as a result. My "macro-game" on the other hand, is still not fine-tuned enough and even after all these years of playing, I still haven't bloody cracked it.

After my hiccup at The Vic during the week and after playing on the internet over the last three days or so, I believe I have hit upon a second "macro-game" leak which needs to be sorted out - and certainly something which needs to be corrected come 2012 when I relaunch the next phase of my poker career. The first leak has been very well documented in this here blog thank you very much - and that's the overuse of alcohol while playing - and this, I think, has cost me a small four-figure sum. The second leak involves what the great John Vorhaus calls "OMHS" or "One More Hand Syndrome."

I hate to admit it, but this not only cost me over a few hundred at The Vic in midweek but has now cost me a few hundred online as well. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was thinking of up and leaving at The Vic when I had £330 in front of me (a small £30 profit) - but stayed and duly lost a very large whack after getting slightly tilted soon after losing with QQ. If I had left in the first place, when the thoughts of leaving first came to me, I would still have had plenty of money in my pocket to enjoy a second session at Bluff@The Mint which I had promised myself.

Similarly, "OMHS" has cost me online as well. After a few good battles, and after what I considered to be good play, yesterday afternoon I stood on a $300 profit after playing at the $0.50/$1 and $1/$2 cash games. My "macro-game" thinking then kicked in and said that as my balance was over a certain milestone, I should log-off, be happy to have recuperated my Vic loss, take a break and go and do something else - good solid thinking. Unfortunately, greed got the better of me and "OMHS", or in this case "OMSS" (One More Session Syndrome) took over. I played more, lost, played a little bit more, lost more - and then lost a lot more - and ended up DOWN on my initial deposit. 

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It's now Saturday afternoon and I'm counting the cost of "OMHS". It's a real bugger and, I tell you now, when "OMHS" goes wrong, it can tilt you bad and make you play VERY BADLY INDEED.

So this is how it's going to be:

With "run bad / bad play" mode activated and my head in a losing mindset right now, my "macro-game" control room is screaming at me and it's saying "STOP PLAYING POKER!" And I hear it baby, I hear it - and I've cashed out my full balance from PKR as a result. (Yet again!) But there is one more thing I have to do before the shutters go up and that's to make one visit this evening to Bluff@The Mint which is the last live venue I have to check out for the blog.

The missus is driving me a bit mad nowadays so rather than strike her down with a rolling pin, my plan is to get out and play at The Mint tonight with a lower buy-in than usual and to see how I get on. After this, win or lose, I'm planning on putting the shutters up for much of December - and it will be a crawl to the finish line; much how I finished last year in fact! My main focus will then be on reading up and studying the game (I certainly have plenty of material) and less on actually playing. With lots to consider about employment and where my regular income is going to come from, I'll also need to figure out a strategy on how to launch my 2012 poker career.

Apologies if this turned into a tl;dr post. I just needed a longer therapy session today.

Was That A One-Outer On The River?

We're on a table with loads of donks and unknowns and we're all-in on the flop:

I think the expression the youngsters use these days is "fml" (fuck my life).

Here are the Poker Stove figures for the turn just to rub it in:

Over the next twenty minutes or so, this was followed up with a few hands where I held baby flushes and was beaten by better flushes. Someone up there likes their little joke I suppose. The odd thing about my recent run of bad form is that (apart from my hiccup at The Vic last night) I actually feel like I've had a sudden surge up the learning curve and that my game is getting a whole lot better.  Funny how poker works at times.

Decide To Play Great Poker

Yesterday, before I hit The Vic to play poor poker, I bought a book at Foyles by Annie Duke and John Vorhaus called "Decide To Play Great Poker." Now, although it can make you think you can play great poker (as many good poker books do) - it might not necessarily guarantee that you won't go on tilt (as no poker book can). Nevertheless, after reading the first few chapters I can say that it's a promising read and I think it could certainly help many intermediate players. On the Amazon site in the USA, it scores four and a half stars out of 67 reviews which is quite impressive.

Live Session #64: Back To Square One

Well, no doubt about it, KK is definitely my jinx hand for sure. Yesterday, I decided that a visit to The Vic was in order and after arriving at 4:30PM and an hour long wait, grabbed my seat at a £1/£2 cash game and bought in for £300. The stacks to my right were huge (one player had about £800 and another around £1000), while the stacks to my left were pretty meaty as well (two players with about £600 each). It was time to play cautious.

Fortunately, as play progressed, due to solid play, I managed to build up a strong solid image but wasn't making a great deal of money. After about 3 hours play, the better players and big stacks had left and of the new players that arrived, no one appeared to pose any real threat. Despite this, with about £330 in front of me, my thoughts turned to locking up the £30 profit and moving on to Bluff @ The Mint in Kensington - a place I had intended to try tonight for the first time.

In retrospect, that IS exactly what I should have done but soon after dismissing thoughts of leaving I lost about £60 to a fairly loose player who pushed me off my hand on the river while I held QQ to a K x x x A board. Slightly tilted by this my mind said "go for a stroll" but my heart said "stay for a bit and see what happens"; I went with my heart. Unfortunately, this is where it went wrong. The QQs were the first premium hole cards I had held in the entire three hours; a few hands later, I got my second premium hand, KK in late position - surely I was going to win with these! I raised it £15 and got a call from the button and the small blind (but I thought that only the SB had called at the time). The flop came low and uncoordinated so I raised another £20. I saw the old guy in the small blind fold his hand and thought I had taken it down but then noticed that the button had, in actual fact, called the £20. (Something in my head had already told me I had won the hand.)

Well, I'm sorry to say that this is when the red mist set in. Without even putting the villain on a hand, I told myself that, surely, I had him beat. I checked the 10 on the turn anyway, to see what he would do, and when he put in £30 just told myself that he was surely on a bluff and I stupidly went all-in. He insta-called and when the river came he announced full-house to have me well and truly crushed. Yep, he called on the button preflop with 5 6 and hit his full-house. Pocket kings cracked once again!! It wasn't a complete wipe-out as I had him covered but enough to make me get on my coat and leave.

When I think back, I realise that I was not thinking about ranges or the player at all (he was a relative newcomer to the table) but the fact that I had "finally" been dealt a premium hand and that I deserved to be paid off at last. The loss with QQ a few hands before certainly didn't help with my mindset and I know now that I shouldn't have put so much value on the monster preflop premiums. It really was the basic schoolboy error of falling in love with KK, not being able to get away from the hand and then being caught off-guard. I really should be beyond that by now and I feel stupid for falling for it. KK has been a nightmare for me in live games in this second part of the year. I've lost three big hands of well over £800 while I've held them. Not nice.

It was a long journey home after this but now that the dust has settled I think a break from the live game has to be the answer. Tilting is NOT usually my thing and although a little bit wiser, it's almost as if I'm back to square one all over again. It may be that work issues are still clouding my judgement and impeding with my thinking but something made me think badly at the table last night and made me make a bad decision - and that's not right.

Fourkin' Hell

Fourking hell - Look at that!!

I've always wanted to do that shot for the album. Happened today in a $13 MTT. Nice.

Preview Of 4 More Poker Books

Say what you will about the psychology of shopping but I've just ordered four poker books from Amazon and I'm feeling a whole lot better. They say that you should keep studying the game away from the table in order to get better and I'm a firm believer in this but it takes many forms innit? No doubt the pros pour over their Holdem Manager graphs and stats etc, but me? I read a lot of poker books.

The pros will also actually tell you that training from a coach, subscriptions to training sites and having discussions about hands within a group are a great way to get better - and I don't doubt the benefits of all this at all. However, the training from a coach idea seems over-the-top serious for the games I play at, the subscription to the Cardrunners training site I've already done (and I don't play enough online now to make it worth my while) and the discussions with others approach requires networking which seems like too much effort.

I know the game moves fast at the mid to high-stakes online games but for me, just reading about the game on a regular basis is enough to keep my enthusiasm alive and gives me the feeling that I'm kept in-the-loop. Even if it is not helping me to improve, having the belief that I'm improving by reading is enough (if that makes any sense). Here are the four books (with full price including postage and packing in brackets) that I ordered:

"Little Gold Book" by Phil Gordon (£10.57)

His "green" and "blue" books were pleasant light reading material for sure, much appreciated by the improving beginning players but from the reviews I've read of this, this latest offering takes the level up a notch or two. He's had his fair share of detractors and critics lately for sure, not least with the latest Full Tilt debacle, but I'm willing to forgive him this in the name of improving my game and for the small price of a tenner. Also, as an older-generation player, who acknowledges that there's a big surge in the younger generation taking the game by storm, I can identify with where he's at.

"Dominate No-Limit Holdem" by Danny Ashman (£10.46)

 

 

This book came out fairly recently and is just one that I've been meaning to add to my collection for a long time now. His last book, on short-handed no-limit poker, got a lot of criticism from 2+2ers for all sorts of reasons (mostly grammatical mistakes) but the general feeling is that he's put that hiccup right with this one. From the reviews and comments I've read, it appears that it's a solid read and I'll be giving it the once-over to mainly consolidate my game.

Poker, Sex and Dying by Juel E. Anderson (£13.85)

Now maybe I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to dodgy sounding titles but I've always avoided this one purely because of the awkward title the author gave his book. However, after reading up on it a little bit, I have to say I'm intrigued; particularly as it directly addresses the live game arena. It seems mainly to tackle 13 character types and their approach to gambling - and from looking at the headings for each, it all kind of fits. Buying the book is a bit of a gamble in itself but I'm hopeful with this one.

"Poker Math That Matters" by Owen Gaines (£32.57)

Weighing in at a price which pretty much amounts to all the others put together, from what I have read about this book I think it's going to be worth it. Now, truth be told, I'm not too bad at working out the odds and all that in poker myself BUT sometimes it's nice to have a user-friendly read (aimed at the layman) where it's all explained nicely and in a digestable form (which many people are saying this is). I think this book is going to help A LOT of beginners who bother to take the relatively short amount of time and effort it'll take to read it. For me, once again, it's more about going back to basics a little bit and consolidating what I know but also about keeping the fire and interest burning at the same time.

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That's it but if you are interested, you can check out here ---> My 12 Favourite Poker Books.

Live Session #63: The Road To Recovery Continues

This evening past as a typical "Wobbly" live poker session should: sober, at The Empire cash game tables (only) and ending in profit. With just one pint consumed at a boozer with the missus beforehand, I entered The Empire at just after 7PM and settled down to play at a freshly opening table - ALWAYS the best type as far as I'm concerned. I made sure I started with more chips than anyone else and bought in for £300. After about 30 or 40 minutes, I had the table sussed and figured there weren't any particularly tricky customers to watch out for. Play was fairly loose but fairly bad into the bargain - just right I guess. 

Thanks largely to a safe, low-variance, ABC style (which was all that was needed at this table) I got up from my seat at about 10:45PM with a small 3-figure profit that easily wiped away the demons from last week's drunken exploits at The Fox - and then some. There were a few interesting hands but, really, my sessions at the moment are more about testing my mindset, playing solidly and keeping off the booze. I guess the best one was where I won a 4-way pot without really having to think at all and getting paid off about £25 each from 3 players. Here it is:

Key Hand
I look down at K 2 of hearts on the button and limp in with the others which seems to be the only preflop move that people know at this table. The flop comes very low, with two hearts, and it's raised £7 by the player UTG. It's called twice so it's a no-brainer call from me as well (ok, maybe I could raise but I figure I want people staying in the pot). The pot is about £36.

The turn is a non-heart and another low card and it looks like there might be a straight out there. It's checked all round and I elect to check as well to see the free card. The river is a heart and it also makes a 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 straight on the board. I bung in £15 and everyone calls so I take down a nice pot of around £100.

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After tipping the floor manager guy £5 for saving me £300 last week (by suggesting I go home when I was drunk) I did actually start wandering through Chinatown to have a peak at The Fox. But something told me that this might be a big mistake - and so I bought me a lamb donner kebab instead and jumped on the bus for the ride home.

A good evening really.

Live Session #62: I Passed The Test

As part of my recuperation process from work, part of my brain has told myself not to play live poker for a while because of my vulnerable state along with the susceptibility of my always answering the call from Bacchus when I'm out on the town. Well, yesterday involved a trip into town with the missus to visit St Pancras train station followed by a look at the British Library - and then, while she did some work there, a solo trip to wherever I felt like going.

Walking, many say, is a good healer for getting your mind straight so I wandered fairly aimlessly until I past a very inviting pub. I settled down for a pint and read some poker literature which, of course, got me in the mood to play some poker. I hopped on the Central Line from Chancery Lane to Marble Arch and strolled up along Edgware Road to The Vic to jump straight into a £1/£1 game. I bought one pint at the bar, played pretty good standard poker and broke even after about an hour and a half of play. The table was really fun with a lot of entertaining characters and it actually turned out to be a really enjoyable evening.

Then came the test...

With the night still young, I decided to walk from Marble Arch to Oxford Circus. While at Oxford Circus, with two pints in me, came the test: do I pop in for one more pint or do I jump on the bus and be happy that I had an enjoyable evening? Well folks, I did wander down one of the lanes just off Oxford Circus and did see many inviting pubs BUT... I rejected Bacchus's call and jumped on that bus!

I passed.

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Today was payday so I deposited a small amount into PKR to play some $0.25/$0.50 and $0.50/$1 and have been having a good time of it. I'm itching to post the hand-history of a hand I played against a poker journalist and very well-respected PKR cash game player, which doubled me up but, other than good old fashioned bragging, there's no real point - and it will jinx me anyway. Needless to say, the online poker playing today has just given me the boost and confidence I need as part of my recuperation process.

I'll be playing a bit more at PKR this evening but that's it for now.

Uncle Wobble.

A Bridge Ahead!!

As regular readers will know, I'm having a rough time in the workplace at the moment and although I would love to exorcise the demons by giving details of the issues here, I just don't think the blog is the place to do that at the present time. To illustrate the problem I used the metaphor of a muddy bog and the slow slog through it. Well, let's extend that analogy; there's a bridge up ahead that will lift me over the swampy mire - and I'm going to use it!

The bridge has come in the form of a little time off work. We all know that anger and hate leads to cynicism and bitterness - so positive thinking about the future is the only way forward.

Work

Despite working with a superb department I think I may need to organise an exit strategy - It's difficult, at the present time, to see my job lasting beyond the end of the academic year (end of August 2012) but the next few months will be crucial. Luckily, kids will always need educating and I'm sure they'll be jobs out there. I could stay in education and go where my teaching methods will be more appreciated by a less brutal senior management team but I certainly haven't discounted leaving the teaching profession altogether and starting something completely new - and something that MUST be less stressful than teaching.

Writing

I need something besides poker to keep me going, writing is the answer. Next year I plan to edit this blog and severely cut it down so that it'll be a less cumbersome read for the first-time reader who won't have to wade through all the fluff and nonsense. If for nothing else, it can be done for therapeutic reasons.

I also have a great idea for a book. This will combine two elements: (1) An idea I have used successfully for teaching kids vocabulary; (2) My daughter's talent as an illustrator. It's a project I will be working on in 2012 come what may.  It also has the full backing from the missus - and she wears the trousers, she knows.

Poker

Ok, inept senior management people may try to chip away at my confidence in teaching but my passion for poker will never die. I will continue to play cash game live poker next year and, with a half-decent track record over the last two years, will consider myself a semi-pro. (Ok, this may be dillusional but see below.)

By reflecting on my performance and results at the live game over the last two years, the ONLY thing I believe is holding me back from advancing into the next level are the calls from Bacchus. If I had ignored him this last year, I believe I easily could have matched the profits I attained in 2010. In 2012 there will be absolutely NO reason to allow Bacchus to disturb my game at all. I even think I should cut him out altogether and go for the alcohol-free approach completely.

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Ok, a rest on the bridge calls - therapy session over.

Live Session #61: Bacchus Came Back

As I wrote in my last post, playing poker while feeling really lousy about work is probably not a very wise thing to do. Nevertheless, yesterday I decided to take myself off to town to play some live poker to see how I could handle it. Unfortuntely, due to all the recent pressure, Bacchus came a-calling and, being weak-willed and stupid, I heeded the call and replied in no uncertain terms. Sadly, the result was that I became so befuddled that it's all a bit of a blur.

To cut a long story short, I first played a £1/£1 cash game at The Fox Club for about an hour and finished a little bit ahead. I then wandered over to The Empire for some £1/£2 and played there for about an hour. While there I won over £100 in a hand where I re-raised a £10 bet up to £50 (with AA) and got TWO callers! Yes, I went all-in on the innocuous flop and, yes, they both folded. Fine.

With a good profit after this short session I soon left but my biggest mistake followed. I wandered back over to The Fox to play in their £38 MTT. Why? I dunno, maybe I wanted to lock up the profit and finish the evening ahead no matter what the result of the tourney, but that was my next port of call. Unfortunately, after the inevitable bust-out (and with large quantities of alcohol consumed) I compounded the mistake by plonking myself down at a £1/£1 table. I have pretty much no recollection of any hands in question, let alone the strength of the players, but after about an hour or two of play, I distinctly remember looking down at my dwindling stack and, with just a couple of £25 chips and a pile of £1 chips in front of me, wondered where the hell my starting stack of £200 went! I really don't remember how the hell it happened!

The interesting bit was that after this, I returned to The Empire with a view to playing more poker but was saved from losing anymore money after I told the guy at the cage that I was totally drunk and really shouldn't play. His reply was that I "should go home then." Fortunately, this advice resonated with the part of my brain that was working well enough and I said he was right. I put my cash back in my pocket and I reckon he had just saved me over £300!

Did I pass the test? No, I drank well over my 3-pint limit while playing poker; something which I told myself I would never do again - and ended up down as a direct result. Not good. I hate to use pressure of work as an excuse but this was clearly a contributory factor. Still, if it wasn't for the voice of reason from the cashier, it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

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The rain that has been falling has meant that I now need to wade through a thick bog. I don't know if I'll be able to keep the posts coming in my usual way as I don't think poker playing will be featuring highly on my schedule over the next few weeks but let's hope the clouds pass soon enough to let the sun through eh?

Struggling

Well, as you may have gathered from my lack of posts this month, along with the short length and lack of detail in each, I'm struggling a little bit on this here journey of mine. What should really be a bright merry path has now turned into a heavy-going marathon and it's a bit of a slog, folks, a slog. The reason is that as I hobble along on this dry and bumpy road, a dark cloud has formed above me and it's started to piss down with rain. Issues at work are getting me down and playing a lot of poker is probably not necessarily the right thing to do. Furthermore, these problems have meant that after I have played my sessions, recently, I've found it hard to drum up the enthusiasm to write about the poker at all. 

Without going into too much detail, the problems coming at me are from senior management. Fortunately, I have the full support of those in my department so at least there is a comforting cushion between the SLT and myself. The advice I'm getting from all quarters is basically that I should forget about it and fuck 'em - which is always what I've done in the past but this is sometimes difficult to do when you have doubts and uncertainties about certain things yourself.

Anyway, it's Saturday morning and despite all of this I've decided to take myself off and head into town today. First off, I'll be buying myself a couple of sweaters for the winter; I've still got my £4 primark number that I bought about 3 years ago for chrissake!! Secondly, I'll be settling in to play me some cash game poker. 'Twill be interesting to see how I cope under the circumstances. I'll let you know how I get on. 

Live Session #60: Doesn't Matter

I had a live session at The Fox tonight after a tough day at work and came away a few pounds up. I was quite drunk and the actual poker was completely overshadowed by the shit that is happening in the work-place right now so I just can't be arsed to type about it - the poker just didn't really matter.

Crawling Back

Ok, so making a big announcement about never going back and hammering nails into the coffin may have been a slight mistake but online poker does that to the amateur player. You go through a bad patch and decide to throw in the towel vowing never to return to the ring again but then a taste for the game always seems to return. Today is Sunday and I'll admit it: I have a bit of free time on my hands, a bit of spare cash lying around in the bank and I'm itching to play a bit of online poker. I've already had two live sessions this weekend and I don't fancy another trip into town so after a quick stroll out and about with the missus this afternoon, I'm gonna deposit me a few hundred and play me a little poker at PKR; probably heading for a little nl25 to get started and maybe having a go at the $5K added MTT for gold+ members.

TALLY-HO!!

P.S. Oh well, I guess online poker IS rubbish after all. I don't know why I always end up going back, I really don't.



Live Session #59: Why Tap The Glass?

Tonight just ended up being a three hour session at The Empire from about 5:30PM to 8:30PM. Once again, the table proved lively and had its great share of characters - which I have now come to expect almost every time I visit the Leicester Square venue. The main topic of conversation tonight though was mainly instigated (and milked for all it was worth) by a European chap who took great offence from the fact that two Chinese players "colluded" by soft-playing each other in two or three hands, while heads-up, by checking their hands down to the river. The fact that no one else at the table seemed to mind certainly didn't prevent this guy from going on and on about it and continuing to argue with the dealer about it for an age. Trouble was the Chinese players in question weren't particularly good (some players may even have labelled them a pair of fish) - and the result of this endless complaining? The pair of them upped and left, that's what, taking all their chips with them to be replaced by a pair of better players! Thank you very much and well played - you doughnut!!

Still, the small amount of ducking and diving tonight helped me gain a small profit which eradicated the small loss from last night and, I guess, was enough to give me the confidence I need as I build up my bankroll for 2012. I left the table at 8:30PM to grab a bite to eat, check out what was going down at The Golden Nugget (the one cash table was full) and to peep in on the main event at The Fox. I had an inkling to play more poker but after considering my state of mind, decided I would just book the small profit and head home for an early night.

Cutting The Chains: Heading For The Light

People,

I have seen the light and it's been shining so brightly of late that I just don't think I can ignore my revelation any longer. I am talking, of course, of the realisation that showing results can bring unnecessary pressure on yourself and can cause a player to tighten up their game to a stifling degree. At The Empire this evening, although I was a little tired, I left early precisely because I didn't want to fritter away a small profit and then report a big loss on the blog. I now realise that this sort of thinking is totally ridiculous and as a consequence I have decided that I will no longer bring you monthly updates of my actual results. I will still give general reports of my live sessions and mention if I play some online sessions, but I won't be stating profits and losses so explicitly. Ten months of giving true results is more than enough and I now have to make this financial side of my affairs my business and my business only.

I will still keep the blog running until the end of the year, of course, and the journey will continue to the end - I will just be releasing myself from the chains that have been slowing me down. It kind of means that I now feel I can run instead of walk. Next year, I hopefully will be flying!! Now although I have not made the type of money that I would have liked at this game in 2011, I still feel very confident about 2012 and I reckon I have enough tools to raise my game in the new year and to take it to a higher level. Giving my results away is certainly NOT the way to achieve this. Anyway, as I have said before, this belief and conviction will be backed up with a bigger bankroll in 2012 and more of an emphasis on playing well and less on obsessing about results.

I have re-evaluated my long-term strategy and come up with a general action plan for 2012. Now I know previously, I stated that I would avoid online cash games. The problem is, I really don't think I can avoid that particular temptation altogether so online poker WILL figure as part of the deal. Here is my action plan as it stands at the moment:

1. To ween myself back into the online game; starting by multi-tabling the low stakes cash games ($0.10/$0.25) and entering the odd satellite for the higher MTTs.

2. To avoid playing small buy-in freezeouts at The Fox Poker Club. The odd £50+ tourney (once every 2 or 3 months) may be ok.

3. To avoid heavy drinking but to allow myself no more than 3 pints - maximum - of an evening.

4. To stick to cash game poker; preferably the £1/£2 game at The Empire - but dropping down to £1/£1 if the seas get choppy OR having the odd shot at £2/£5 if the wind is flowing nicely through the sails.

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I hope y'all appreciate my decision and understand where I'm coming from on this but also that you will still follow me on the journey to the end.

Tonight, another session at The Empire calls.

Live Session #58: Same Old

I'll be quick with this report:

1. £15 down at a £1/£1 cash game at The Fox. It was one of the most boring tables I've ever been on with about 5 hands being played in 20 minutes and players taking an age to make decisions thinking they're high-stakes ballers. I left the table at this point (11PM) and entered the £30 rebuy satellite for the main event.

2. £38 spent on the rebuy satellite followed by another £30 immediately for the extra 3000 chips. (Only one rebuy allowed.) I think impatience got the better of me with this and I went all-in with A 9 after seeing an A x x flop. The villain had A Q. A feeling of total indifference came over me with this satellite as I'm becoming more and more disillusioned with MTTs and more and more drawn to the cash games.

3. Rushed to the £1/£2 cash tables at The Empire and felt right at home. Stayed for about an hour, won £55, and left after the feeling of tiredness overwhelmed me.

That's it.

Thoughts Of Weekend Poker

In my last post, I made the decision to show the November and December results for the sake of consistency and to carry the job through to the end. I also highlighted that I’ve come to realise how damaging this is and how the added pressure this brings can actually strangle creativity and cause a player to have an overly tight attitude towards the game. Much as I regret having to display my profit and loss balance over the next few months, I guess it won’t be so bad if I just think A-game poker and just focus on the job in hand.

With it being Friday afternoon and with the weekend approaching, thoughts, of course, turn to playing live poker. Interestingly enough, there are a few satellite events occurring at The Fox over the next few days for their £500 buy-in main event which starts on Saturday at 3PM. I can’t say I’m not tempted as I’m definitely all for entering meaningful MTTs with meaningful payouts and getting away from the small buy-in events.

Therefore, it’ll either be a crack at a satellite this evening at The Fox or a cash game session at The Empire. As ever, we’ll see...