Poker

Had a nice day off yesterday but another tough day of poker today. Volume was okay for me, but I think it was mostly because I was getting lots of rematches rather than lots of lobbies.

I was mentally weak when it came to bad variance today. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m not feeling 100% physically or because it’s leftover tilt from my bad Friday session.

I’ve definitely been struggling a lot to feel good lately. I haven’t been sleeping well and I have a couple small problems that might require some minor surgery and/or blood tests/x-rays depending on whether or not they improve. I’ve also had some headache problems and allergy issues, so it’s just been a lot to deal with at once.

I’ve written in the past about my issues with people beating me for multiple games in a row. I was unable to keep my cool in these situations today, and I have a couple objects thrown across the room as evidence for it. I didn’t break anything, though 😉

One of the players that beat me for 10 straight today was el grillo, the PokerStars pro. He won 10 and then quit me after losing 2 for a nice little hit-and-run. I’d expect a little better out of someone that represents the site as a pro, as hit-and-running is pretty lame. I guess the $1.6k he won off me was a big deal to him and he didn’t want to risk it once he stopped running insanely hot. Hopefully I get it back in the future although he doesn’t play a lot of hyper HU.

Overall I didn’t play my best today. I can count at least 3 glaring mistakes that resulted in giving stacks away, and I’m sure there were plenty more small mistakes that resulted in a much lower ROI than usual. I didn’t have the discipline to fold certain spots when I should, and I didn’t take the time to think as much I should be in certain hands.

I guess it’s also worth noting that I had to take a break in the middle of my second session today because I was insanely tilted and had to calm myself down. I don’t usually have to take breaks for this purpose, so I guess I’m just not in a great mindset at the moment.

It’s been a tough last three months or so of poker. I really hope it turns around soon.

Last time I wrote, I was lamenting on the lack of volume. Today, no complaints there. It was really incredible, actually – I am really amazed at the number and quality of games I got today.

Not only did I play ~30 games per hour, I actually played more $200s than $100s for basically the first time in my life. It obviously makes perfect sense that lower stakes run more often than higher stakes, so it’s incredibly surprising that I could ever get more $200s than $100s.

I played over 200 games, which I haven’t done in a long while. It’s nice to get a good day of volume in.

Unfortunately, I had one of my worst days ever where variance is concerned. I haven’t looked at my results (and won’t do so until the end of tomorrow as usual), but I know it was a blood bath. I just lost all day today, from the very start until the very end.

It’s frustrating that I ran so bad on a day I finally got to play lots of games. The good thing is that I didn’t get really tilted for most of the day. Towards the end of my 2nd session I started to get pretty tired, so I don’t think I played optimally. I was certainly still very +EV in all the games I was in, though, so I’m fine with the fact that I didn’t stop playing.

I definitely felt pangs of frustration in the latter half of my session, especially after I lost 10 of 12 games versus one player that ran extremely hot vs me. But I would have expected me to lose it a lot more than I did given how terribly the day went, so I’ll take that as a good thing.

It’s been a while since I last posted, mostly because I haven’t been playing much online poker. Before today I only played ~20 hours since getting back to Montreal, and action has been very bad so I’ve had a much lower expected hourly than usual.

When I haven’t really been feeling like playing, I’ve mostly just sat around and waited for lobbies. A couple days I did this at $200s and $100s on just PokerStars and saw that the games per hour was only 8. This is really terrible. On days where games have been good this year, the number is at least 15 and up to 20.

On days when I’m feeling motivated, I either sit other regs to up the table count or add $60s. The option I choose mostly depends on which regs are online and whether the reg is at $200 or $100. I’d prefer to play regs at $200 instead of $100, but it really depends. There are a lot of very weak players moving up to $100s from $60s that are really nice to play even at lower stakes.

I set out today intending on playing a full day of poker. It was just horrible volume, though. It’s the day after SCOOP and a Monday so I guess I couldn’t have expected action to be very good, but it’s pretty irritating nonetheless. My average buy-in is usually $130 on a typical day, but today it was $113 thanks to the $60s I had to play.

I’m gonna try again tomorrow and I’m really hoping things are better!

I ended up taking the rest of April off because it appears I needed some rest. I’ve never encountered poker burn out before so I didn’t know what the signs were. But it looks like going from 15 hour weeks straight to 35+ hour weeks is a recipe for it!

Luckily I’m about to leave for WPT Montreal, so the timing works out okay. I’m probably just playing the 3k Main Event and then enjoying the city when I bust.

I’ve never been to Montreal before so I’m pretty excited! My favorite thing to do is eat, so I’m happily taking advice on awesome restaurants. Leave a comment or email me 🙂

I’ll post a trip report when I’m back. I’ll probably post tournament updates on Twitter, so follow me @courtiebee if you’re interested.

Title says it all. Hate for this blog to be all doom and gloom lately, but that’s how life has been. I really hate poker at this very moment.

Looked at my results and the week went badly as expected. I confirmed just got coolered all week because my EV is just as bad as my results. The days I felt like I was tilting for nothing weren’t just tilt for nothing because I confirmed lost heaps those days. Blah blah blah.

In other news, I felt good for the first time all week today. I spent like 11 hours in bed but at least it worked! Volume was also incredible late in the day today. I played an hour later than I usually do and had to decline fish at $200s to stop. I was just getting too tired and tilty for my own good, so I had to stop.

I’m glad this week is over. I lost over half my month’s profits in less than 700 games, and I felt sleep deprived the entire time. Pretty much nothing this past week went right in any facet of my life, so yeah, good riddance.

The sleeping problems continue. Melatonin didn’t help and I woke up several times during the night as usual. I’m not sure what to do at this point. I might have to buy a new bed, I guess?

I felt pretty bad today and probably shouldn’t have played poker, but I really wanted to. I’m trying to get as many hours in as possible this year and my inability to sleep is really hindering my progress.

I refrained from sitting regs today since I wasn’t feeling up to par and added $60s to get some softer games. I definitely made some mistakes today but I think I was still making enough money per hour to make it worth it.

I feel like today went badly overall where results are concerned and that I got coolered too many times to be profitable. Add in the mistakes I made due to being tired and I’m left crossing my fingers that I lost less than I think 😛

This week has been pretty terrible. Maybe tomorrow will salvage it like last Saturday?

Well I didn’t sleep well. I ended up staying in bed 10 hours trying to make up for the fact that I woke up a million times during the night. Quality > quantity, but at least I felt well enough to play after I went for a walk this morning.

It felt like action was a little better today than the past week, but maybe that’s because I was sitting regs when I had nothing to do again.

I felt frustrated for most of the hours I played today. I don’t think I ran badly enough to have felt pissed off all day, so I guess lack of volume and lack of sleep contributed to the bad mood. I just felt like I got coolered a lot and that people had it at perfect times for a large fraction of the day.

I also feel like I was losing a lot of flips, but that could have very well been selective memory. I guess I’ll find out on Sunday when I look at my EV.

I played two hours less than usual because of the extra time I had to spend in bed today. I really want to play a full today tomorrow, so I’m gonna take some melatonin and hope that helps with the sleeping tonight. GL me.

I bought a new bed recently and I’ve been sleeping really badly on it ever since I got it. I bought a floor model which means I can’t exchange it, so I’m really hoping I get used to it soon.

I keep telling myself it’s the pillows I’m using and not the bed itself, so I keep buying new pillows to try to fix the problem. Now I have like $500 in pillows sitting on my bed each night. It’s really absurd. I just really don’t wanna have to buy a new bed 🙁

I woke up feeling really awful this past Monday so I didn’t play. Today I woke up feeling bad again, so I went back to sleep for an hour. I woke up and still felt unrested, so I went to the gym and had a work out. I had done this on Monday and it didn’t help, but it seemed to do the trick today. I ran a bunch of errands and then went home and played a half session. Action was okay and I think I ran pretty average. Maybe lost a bit, but it was nothing too annoying.

PLEASE GOOD SLEEP TONIGHT! ONE TIME DEALER!

I decided to play some MTTs today and it wasn’t very fun. I found them pretty boring and the entire time I just wanted to play some HU, so I stopped registering for them after I had 6 and switched back 😛

I dunno if that means I am not gonna know what I am doing at all if I play the WPT donkament, haha. I mean obviously I know how to play poker, but there are definitely some things specific to MTTs that I have to work on. I’m gonna review the MTTs that I played today and see what I’m doing badly and go from there. I really don’t want to play another batch of MTTs before I go to Montreal, but I might have to 😛

HU was awful today anyway. I played them for 3 hours today during times when the action is usually decent, and it was pretty bad. Even sitting the occasional reg wasn’t enough to get the number of games per hour anywhere close to okay. There’s just so many regs on these days. I’m hoping it changes soon but if it doesn’t, it probably means that there are gonna be many more reg games in my future.