steaming! the truth begins to sink in...

Wow! WHAT A FRUSTRATING SESSION!

I keep playing hands I shouldn't play. I keep going to the river with top pair or worse. What the hell is wrong with me!?!

I'm sooo mad. I spent half the day deciding which site to put some more money on (in the end PokerStars was the only one with a small enough min deposit and facilities to take the paysafe cash that I had) and then spent ages deciding on a new site to try (answer : Virgin Poker).

Virgin's payment system seems to have taken my money then told me the transaction had failed - so the money is gone from my account but not registered on theirs. eh?!?!

Still, my play on CDPoker is the most annoying part of today. 2 hours. lost just over $2.00. clawed my way back once to within $.50 of my starting stack but donked it all again.

wow. even the $0.05/$0.10 tables are tough for me. This is not good.

Starting to think I'll have to set myself a stoploss figure at which point I should quit poker. Maybe I make a decision after 10,000 hands.

and then there was a party at my expense

Oh well, just when I thought it was safe to consider moving up a level, I went on a donking spree.

So frustrating, there were some much bigger fish at the table but I ended up losing all my money. Should have got up after maybe 70  hands. Played far too long and really didn't care in the end.

So, that's wiped out all the wins of the last two days leaving me with a bigger mountain to climb over all.

88 hands later

Had a go on PokerStars today at the same limits as OnGame ($0.05/$0.10)  this time at a speed 6 max table. played 88 hands in around an hour.

Enjoyed the game. traded a few short comments with a player called "gerry.gi". it's quite good when you have a little conversation at the table as it makes the whole experience seem more human.

Play dried up towards the end as all the major fish disappeared (around hand 55) and it was just me and the sharks. I made my excuses and left before anyone took any big chunks out of my stack :P

Preparing for a return

What with the terrible play last month and being very busy at work, I've taken a break from poker apart from reading the occaisional magazine article and listening to the two-plus-two podcast.

Have gone right off tournament play.

Had been reading "Gambling Theory and Other Topics" by Mason Malmuth on and off and quite liked his style though it's a bit heavy going. Recently I switched to reading "Small Stakes Hold'em" (Ed Miller, David Sklandsky and Mason Malmuth)  instead. I love this book!

It's the first time I've seen a whole chapter on pre-flop play concepts - e.g. what kind of thought processes go into deciding how much you can raise pre-flop with any particular hand and still be profitable. It goes into a lot more subjects than just plain old "Pot Odds".

This book is definitely opening my eyes wider. More of the stats in Holdem Manager make sense now - even after just reading the pre-flop play section. I was able to review my performance with particular hands against the advice in the book. For instance, I didn't know what "Cold Calling" meant until today!

I'm eager to try out what I've read so far so will be hopping back into cash games soon - probably tomorrow.

Holdem Manager is excellent. I think I'll start a new database for this attempt and really make an effort to analyze my play.