Mid-Air Turbulence

Well, the start of the $10NL phase of Operation Hindenburg is off and running..... off and running to a rocky start, that is. I've played 1000 hands so far in the past couple of days, and I've got a whopping 65-cents profit to show for the effort. Ugh. I had rockets cracked twice for a loss of $15, plus I got clobbered holding AK for a buy-in when a bozo playing TT reshoved on me on a flop of A-K-4. He turned a set--of course--which cost me a big chunk of cash.

Okay, those were beats, which you just have to play through in no-limit poker. I can't really complain (well, I just did, but you get my point). What I can complain about, however, is a 350 hand session yesterday when I knew I wasn't playing my A-game, but I played anyway. Worse, I opened 8 tables, and took on a kind of "devil may care" attitude, content to chase and get into races. That, my friends, is called tilt. I cost myself over $8 alone in that stupid session. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Okay, all that said, I've learned a few things so far after making the switch from $5NL to $10NL. First off, the play is somewhat better. Not a lot better, mind you, but the really fishy players are less prevalent. They're still there, of course, but not in the vast schools that were swimming in $5NL. Also indicative of this is that the table VPIPs are somewhat tighter. Whereas in the $5NL games I could almost always count on finding 45% or higher tables to play at, I'm much more likely to have to settle for 35-40% tables. I've also gotten three-bet bluffed a few times, which is something very rare at the lower stakes. What I think this latter point means, btw, is that I have to play fewer tables at a time and spend more time playing the player and situations. Gone are the days of opening 12 tables of 6max and making a decent profit.

All-in-all, the switch to $10NL has been pretty interesting so far, although I need to remember to take my Dramamine before playing. There's turbulent air ahead...

All-in for now...
-Bug