Well, this was one helluva week playing cards. The reason? In a nutshell, I had to play A LOT of hands. With just a week to go in the month, and with a bankroll that was $90 short of the $160 goal, I had some serious ground to make up. Fortunately, I had last Saturday mostly free to just sit and grind away at the felt (the wife was at an all day writing conference). That same Sunday also was fairly open, so I got in quite a bit of poker then, too. Poker tracker estimates I spent twelve hours playing on just those two days alone (yes, I can be a pathetic loser without a life sometime :-) I also had to take some big risks to get the ‘roll, uh, rolling again. It’s that old poker adage writ anew: to live (win), you have to be willing to die. Well, I was gambling with some pretty big chunks of my bank roll at times, letting it all hang out there and risking a total system crash. Pretty scary stuff, but I figured I had to take one last serious stab at keeping the experiment alive.
Besides the weekend, the rest of the week was also crammed with cards whenever and wherever I could fit in the time. I averaged over 3 hours per day during the week, and then hit the virtual tables hard again yesterday and today. All in all, I probably grinded away 40 hours of poker in the last 9 days. Ugh.
Fortunately, I had some good luck and made some big scores. The only real bad news to report is that I couldn’t seem to money in a sit-n-go to save my life. Seems every time I played one I finished either in 7th place or in 4th, just outside the money. I can't complain too much, tho, as I cleaned up at the limit and no-limit cash games, and more than made up for the SnG losses.
The NL cash games were a new addition to my poker curricula. I’ve dabbled with them before, but never had any luck. This time, I figured I needed some help, so I signed up for a month of grinderschool.com, which is a relatively inexpensive poker training site. Well, “training” is actually a bit generous. In reality, it is just a half dozen or so talented poker players who video tape their games and talk over them while taking down pots. I’ve watched four videos so far, and it actually works. In fact, it’s kind of amazing how much it helped straighten me out. Just watching someone else fold KQo to an early position raiser reinforces that I have to do the same. Call it silly, but the videos seems to “prove” that tight aggressive poker works. It also helps to see how much is bet, when reraises are called for, and how the pros go through their thought processes when deciding when (and if) to get involved in a hand. As a result, I have made some pretty decent scores at the one/two-cent and 5/10-cent NL cash games (which are referred to as $2NL and $10NL games; the common practice is to multiply the BB amount by 100 and label the game by that amount.)
In limit, I also ventured outside of my comfort zone-- sometimes WAY outside of it. I played a fair bit of $1/2, and even jumped into some $2/4 and, believe it or not, a $3/6 game with my entire bankroll as my table stake! Talk about a ginormous pucker factor. Yikes! Fortunately, I played TAG poker at loose tables when in these stakes and (even better) my big hands held up. The poker gods were kind to me this week and I added a lot to the bankroll.
Okay, so what is the bottom line you ask? Did I make the $160 target? The answer is………..drum roll………. wait for it....... wait for it.......Yes, I did it! If you had asked me last week whether I would make it back to $160, I would have laughed and said no way, but by buckling WAY down, studying grinderschool videos, playing a TON of poker, and getting lucky when I needed to, I fairly easily cleared the $160 target. In fact, I’m up over $200 and on my (hopeful) way to $320 in September. With some more luck, I just may keep YIPES alive for another month or two. Woo hoo!
Okay, that said, I do have to make one thing clear: I ain’t ever gonna play that much poker again in the name of YIPES. I did what I had to do to make the monthly goal, but it was seriously too much poker. Yes, I like playing cards, but that was a bit much, even for me. In order for YIPES to live, I had to be willing to let it die, gamblingwith some pretty big chunks of the bankroll. That was bad enough; worse was the feeling of self-applied pressure I put on myself during the week. Forty hours of poker in nine days is, frankly, insane. I had poker continously on the brain and I couldn’t get away from it, even when I wanted to. I would go to bed and dream about hands I played, then wake up and start figuring out when I could squeeze in another thirty minutes or hour here or there between work and homoe. Everything was poker, poker, poker, and bankroll management, and how to maximize edge and volume, and strategy, and poker videos, and then more poker, poker, poker. Like I said, insane.
So, a new rule is now in effect. I vow never again to play more than 2 hours of poker a day on YIPES. If I don’t make a monthly target, so be it. YIPES may die, but I won’t kill myself again like I just did. In order to live, you have to, well, have a life-- especially in the world of YIPES.
All in for now….
-Bug
Besides the weekend, the rest of the week was also crammed with cards whenever and wherever I could fit in the time. I averaged over 3 hours per day during the week, and then hit the virtual tables hard again yesterday and today. All in all, I probably grinded away 40 hours of poker in the last 9 days. Ugh.
Fortunately, I had some good luck and made some big scores. The only real bad news to report is that I couldn’t seem to money in a sit-n-go to save my life. Seems every time I played one I finished either in 7th place or in 4th, just outside the money. I can't complain too much, tho, as I cleaned up at the limit and no-limit cash games, and more than made up for the SnG losses.
The NL cash games were a new addition to my poker curricula. I’ve dabbled with them before, but never had any luck. This time, I figured I needed some help, so I signed up for a month of grinderschool.com, which is a relatively inexpensive poker training site. Well, “training” is actually a bit generous. In reality, it is just a half dozen or so talented poker players who video tape their games and talk over them while taking down pots. I’ve watched four videos so far, and it actually works. In fact, it’s kind of amazing how much it helped straighten me out. Just watching someone else fold KQo to an early position raiser reinforces that I have to do the same. Call it silly, but the videos seems to “prove” that tight aggressive poker works. It also helps to see how much is bet, when reraises are called for, and how the pros go through their thought processes when deciding when (and if) to get involved in a hand. As a result, I have made some pretty decent scores at the one/two-cent and 5/10-cent NL cash games (which are referred to as $2NL and $10NL games; the common practice is to multiply the BB amount by 100 and label the game by that amount.)
In limit, I also ventured outside of my comfort zone-- sometimes WAY outside of it. I played a fair bit of $1/2, and even jumped into some $2/4 and, believe it or not, a $3/6 game with my entire bankroll as my table stake! Talk about a ginormous pucker factor. Yikes! Fortunately, I played TAG poker at loose tables when in these stakes and (even better) my big hands held up. The poker gods were kind to me this week and I added a lot to the bankroll.
Okay, so what is the bottom line you ask? Did I make the $160 target? The answer is………..drum roll………. wait for it....... wait for it.......Yes, I did it! If you had asked me last week whether I would make it back to $160, I would have laughed and said no way, but by buckling WAY down, studying grinderschool videos, playing a TON of poker, and getting lucky when I needed to, I fairly easily cleared the $160 target. In fact, I’m up over $200 and on my (hopeful) way to $320 in September. With some more luck, I just may keep YIPES alive for another month or two. Woo hoo!
Okay, that said, I do have to make one thing clear: I ain’t ever gonna play that much poker again in the name of YIPES. I did what I had to do to make the monthly goal, but it was seriously too much poker. Yes, I like playing cards, but that was a bit much, even for me. In order for YIPES to live, I had to be willing to let it die, gamblingwith some pretty big chunks of the bankroll. That was bad enough; worse was the feeling of self-applied pressure I put on myself during the week. Forty hours of poker in nine days is, frankly, insane. I had poker continously on the brain and I couldn’t get away from it, even when I wanted to. I would go to bed and dream about hands I played, then wake up and start figuring out when I could squeeze in another thirty minutes or hour here or there between work and homoe. Everything was poker, poker, poker, and bankroll management, and how to maximize edge and volume, and strategy, and poker videos, and then more poker, poker, poker. Like I said, insane.
So, a new rule is now in effect. I vow never again to play more than 2 hours of poker a day on YIPES. If I don’t make a monthly target, so be it. YIPES may die, but I won’t kill myself again like I just did. In order to live, you have to, well, have a life-- especially in the world of YIPES.
All in for now….
-Bug
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