Simian to Self: "If I Made $, Why Am I Not Happy?"

I played four separate, short sessions of poker yesterday. I was trying to execute brief (<50 hand) "perfect" sessions, and mostly I succeeded. Well, mostly. While I definitely added a decent amount of money to my bankroll ($33), I could have added more. A lot more, in fact. At one point I was up nearly $80! I was playing very solidly, getting good cards, jumping off of marginal hands, and generally playing my A-game. But once my 'roll shot up $80, I started loosening up, chasing hands I had no business being in, and generally donking off a sizeable fraction of my winnings. Call it Success Syndrome, Reverse-Bug Tilt, or whatever.... it was not a happy outcome. I was left with a sour taste in my mouth all evening long as I thought back on the money I donated back to the tables that I shouldn't have. Arhg.

In other poker news, now that my subscription to Grinderschool finally ran out, I'm going back and actually starting to watch the 300+ videos I downloaded. I'm currenty focusing on their 6max NL games, as that seems to be what I'm playing a lot of lately. I glean a surprisingly large amount of info from the videos, and it almost always seems to "tune-up" my game if I play immediately after watching even just 10 minutes of a professional play. In fact, I credit this this strategy to my early big gains yesterday. Playing monkey-see-monkey-do poker is definitely +EV for this particular chimp.... at least until the Success Syndrome hits. Sigh.

I'm still reading "Winning Poker Tournaments, One Hand At A Time," literally one hand at a sitting. The book details 300 or so individual hands of poker tourneys (in much the same format as the Harrington on Hold'em books), so it's useful to read two pages on a hand, put the book down, and then spend a few brain cycles pondering what the authors have advocated doing in that particular situation. Call this strategy monkey-see-monkey-think.

I've also renewed my subscription to Cardplayer magazine, which had lapsed for the past 6 months. There's just enough poker news and useful info in the mag to merit the $20 yearly fee. Oh, I'm told this week's Wednesday poker strategy session will focus on Heads-Up play, so it might give me an opportunity to finally look into the "SAGE" system of heads-up play that Alex, a poker friend of mine, is an advocate of. I believe SAGE is intended for HU play in SnGs and is based on an ICM model. It would be interesting to see how it compares to the ICM spreadsheet that Mr. Multi and I put together a few weeks ago. I may also try to find some time to watch one or two of the 10+ grinderschool HU vids I have copied. More monkey-see homework. Give that man a banana....

All-in for now...
-Bug