BadBlood on Poker

Played some live games on Friday and Monday and it was basically a wash. Played pretty well and won Friday night, played slightly less better on Monday and lost. I had two two-outers on the river kill my chances Monday. One was self-inflicted, i.e. free card, and one was my last hand of the night when I was all-in on the flop. It was too demoralizing to continue so I went home early for a slight change of pace.

My Pokerstars iPod came in on Monday which is cool. I uploaded every digital song, video and still image that I had on my PC and still have 130Gigs free space. Obviously I need more porn.

The Monday holiday was nice as I spent most of it with the wife, got in a workout and then played cards. Not sure how close to an ideal a day it was, but only a measurement error would indicate that it wasn't close. I suppose winning on Monday would have been nice, but that's out of my control.

My online roll is at a new post-UIGEA-panic-withdrawal high thanks to some decent play, but more importantly due to a renewed discipline in non-titly behavior. I can't tell you how many times a bad beat would lead me to the aw-fuck-it stage of poker play wherein I'd log onto a table or register for a tournament beyond my means. I have not done that for the past two months, even catching myself as thoughts of doing so sprouted from the seeds of the standard, inane beats we all take. Quite a leak to have plugged.

My live leak has been worked on too. I'm quite positive that my weakest phase of my live game play is on the river. The river is where the bets and pots are the largest and thus those decisions you make at that point in the hand are the most relevant to your bottom line. I've been paying off way too many hands on the river where deep down I knew I was beat. It's not even like I'm picking off any bluffs, I'm just paying off value far too often. Sure, I'll get bluffed more often now with many of my opponents reading this, but I'll take more time to hopefully replay the hand and make the right call or fold. There have been several hands were I've figured out the final piece of evidence that dictates how the hand should be played well after I've actually made my decision. I've been rushing and acting too quickly. That will stop.