Back In Cash Games!

I don't know if it's my play, my tournament selection, or just variance, but I'm leaking like untreated gonorrhea. It's disgusting.

Since the big win last week, I have entered 34 tournaments...I have cashed in one of them, a 100+9 on Stars where I squeaked into the money in 25th and got busted out when KK ran into AA. Other than that, and the one bounty I picked up in the 120+9 30k on UB, I've gotten stugots in the last 34. It's pretty sick.

I wrote in an earlier blog how I was not playing well, presumably because of a lack of patience after the big win and not wanting to wait around for six hours for a "measly" five or six thousand. At the time of that writing, I felt like I was cured, but I sat down the next day and the shit continued.

Finally, last night I decided I'd had enough. I'm much better than this and I was going to prove it to myself. I "locked myself up" as I like to put it. No more distractions while playing, I was going to sit and watch the game and play the way I know how to play. I opened all of my programs (spreadsheet, UB, Stars, Tilt, and iTunes) and sat down. I closed the door to my room, turned off the light, closed the shades, and put on the headphones.

I'm a huge Sopranos fan, and unfortunately I got to watch the first season when it first aired, and then had to suffer for years when my family canceled HBO and I was unaware of the wonders of torrents. Now, we have HBO just in time for me to catch the final episodes, only I've found myself horribly behind in the storylines. To cure this problem, enter the magnificent torrent system. I've got the entire series downloading now, one episode at a time, on my computer while I'm sleeping or otherwise not at my computer. I've set it up to download in order, so lately every few hours I spend away from my computer gets me one more episode. I'm loving every second of that fucking show, and I can't get the theme song out of my head.

I figured this would be the best thing to help me concentrate. No Dave (like usual), no High Stakes Poker or Poker After Dark episodes, no House, MD episodes, just the "Woke Up This Morning" Chosen One Mix on repeat. I put on the headphones and was officially locked in to this session, and I was going to play my best no matter what.

It worked, actually. I still ran like shit and never got anything going early in tourneys, but I didn't make any huge mistakes and didn't donk of any huge chipleads (as I had been doing regularly in the days prior). I was feeling good about my game, and I was feeling really good when I actually got to see the "Players are now on break" popup on my tables. It had been awhile since I made it that deep in a tournament lol.

While I still was pretty card dead, it felt good just to get that cash in the 100+9. My tournament ended pretty abruptly when the KK ran into AA, but that's poker and I shook it off. If that hand hits, or I don't run into the aces at all, I would have been looking good in the tourney. It happens though, and is pretty consistent with how I've been running lately.

Anyway, I was locked in and just sitting playing my heart out, I ended that day 1/13 in cashes, which still sucks, but I was seeing that my bust outs weren't because of bad play anymore, they were now solely because I was running like shit. It sucks to get to the break with 1400 in chips every fucking time because you didn't pick up a hand the entire hour and picked up blinds three times.

So I booked a good day, as far as I was concerned. I felt I still had some kinks to work out but generally had gotten my drive back to win, no matter what the first place prize was.

Today was another day along those lines. I played very well as far as I'm concerned. Obviously yes, 0/5 in cashes, but I was a lot happier with my play today. I would have been very deep in the 35+3 Bounty 6k Guarantee on UB, but of course I pick up QQ in the SB with about 15BB in my stack and run into AA in LP. Out in 35th when 30 paid. I'm not unhappy about that, though, as I think I was going broke no matter what. The entire board was babies, and the flop was extremely innocent. It was gg me no matter how I played that.

After the tough day at the tourneys, I decided to give it a rest. I haven't sat down in cash games in awhile, and thought maybe the change of scenery would be good for me. I sat down in three 5/10 short-handed limit hold'em games on Stars, and added a fourth soon after when I got my bearings. The session was extremely fun, which is something I can't say about my tournaments lately. I opened up Pokertracker for the first time in quite awhile (I don't PT my MTT'S, only cash games) and got GT+ running. I fell back into it pretty well, and was up about 250 pretty quickly.

I hung around at that number, had a big stack at a couple tables and no stack at a couple tables, and ended up about even for the session, I didn't keep track of exact numbers, but I think I was down maybe 100. That, plus the tourneys for the day, gave me a day total of about -450. Not bad compared to the other days recently, but definitely not where I want to be.

I think I'm gonna do some more cash games from now on, the money is nicer and I think it really helps my tournament game. I need a break from NLHE. I can only handle so much of that game before burn out, and I think I've reached burn out.

I'm still going to play in all of the 100+9's on Stars, though, as I have set a goal for myself to really be proud of my Pocket Fives numbers by the end of the Summer. They haven't updated their stats lately though, and my 25k win isn't even on there! I emailed their results guy and he told me that for some reason they are still missing all of the tourneys from that day, but that they are working on getting them up. That will suck if they don't get reported and I get gypped out of my surefire big points jump.

Lick 'er in the front, poke 'er in the back,
Jesse