Decision Time

Another frustrating month, I have been struggling to get in the hours for bad beat this month due to other comittments and I think I am gonna come up short of the requirement. Losing my PC for 3 days on and off cos of wireless problems didn't help either, thankfully these are now sorted. I am up slightly this month for bad beat, but it could of been a lot better as ever. Still don't think I am playing aggressively enough to really start dominating the 25c/50c cash where I am still playing, but I am not sure if anyone can ever "own" that level, as there are to many in-experienced players at this level, who always seem to trip you up.

I will reach my yearly target of $4.5k profit at the end of this month when the bonuses are paid out. However it means that I will have reached my target due to bonuses and rakeback, and not through actual play. Now this is a dilemma for me, what do I want to get out of poker ? do I want to make money steadily ?, or do I want to become a very good player who potentially can make a living at it. I really would like to make poker my primary source of income, but my reluctance to move up the levels because of my discipline, I think sometimes holds me back. Even with bad beats money, I still am not playing above 25c/50c. At the moment, I am not much more than a break even player when multitabling, I know I could probably 8 table most of the month, come out around level at least and then make the money out of bonuses and rakeback. I have worked out that I can make $10k a year, even at the level I am at, which is not a bad investment. BUT, this is not making me a better player, it is just turning me into a grinder, pretty much playing abc poker, with the odd move to hopefully add value and an edge. I am also finding I am missing playing MTT's, not having a big win this year, as I said in my previous post, has affected the overall income from poker, next year I am going to start doing more of these.

So in summary, I think come the new year, I have a big decision to make, do I stay with bad beat or not. It really is a fantastic set up with a great bunch of people and I love being a part of it, but if I can't see myself changing my attitude and lack of confidence, I think the long hours grinding route will be the way forward for me. Maybe results in december will make me change my mind, I guess we are just gonna have to wait and see, this is assuming Bad Beat keep me on as I said earlier I have been struggling with my hours.

Whatever happens, I am going to set my target for next year to me $10k in profit, a very large leap, but for the hours I am putting in now, anything less is not really going to be worth it.

Toodle Pip for now.

October Pain, but still a gain

Well October turned out to be a strange month, on the cash front, on Grand Slam for Bad Beat it was a nightmare. I just could do nothing right and got some serious bad beats, this along with some poor calls by me, resulted in a big loss on the month, prob about $380 down. This is very frustrating, as I now have to win all of this back, to start getting paid again. I must admit, I have played poker long enough to know that I am going to have runs like this, but it is very very hard to take when you miss every flop, every c-bet I put out either gets called or re-reraised. Every time my chips went in 80% fave, the oppo hits his outs. My KK's walked into AA sooo many times it was untrue, and when I did get AA the others inevitably hit their set against me and I just couldn't lay it down due to my chasing. I would like to think that october has taught me a valuable lesson, in that, at the level I play at, if you get rr, you are 99% of the time beat and just lay it down. Here are just a few of the hands I could find of note. Couldn't be arsed to search through the whole of my hands for the worst ones, but these will give you an idea of the sort of month I had on Grand Slam.

http://www.badbeat.com:8080/static/gameReplay.swf?gameID=697427416
http://www.badbeat.com:8080/static/gameReplay.swf?gameID=696905859
http://www.badbeat.com:8080/static/gameReplay.swf?gameID=697402375
http://www.badbeat.com:8080/static/gameReplay.swf?gameID=697491796

On a brighter note, I was up on the cash front on sun over the month and the $200 bonus + the rakeback to come, gives a much needed boost to the bankroll.

Even better news is the fact that on the MTT front I actually had decent results in the few that I played. The biggest payout being a nice little $340 for 3rd place in the ladbrokes 2am $40 Graveyard Tourney, which I got in via a $3 sat. I actually think that in this tourney, I played my best MTT poker ever. It is strange that since playing so many cash hands over the last few months, my MTT game seems to have leaped up to a new level, I think in november I might try a few more satellites into some bigger tournies. I still have never had a $1k+ payout in one tourney, in fact the only time I have won more than $1k in a day was when I won the old laddies $10 evening tourney for about $920 and made the FT of the $5 at the same time. But I guess when you are such a tightwad as me and rarely fork out more than $5 in an MTT, unless you muff through a 3000 runner tourney, the payouts are not gonna be big.

I also won a hi lo MTT on Sun for a small amount of $$$ as there was not many runners.

Another good MTT result, albeit not financially, was the OFC forum challenge on Full Tilt, where I managed to come 32nd out of 3300+ runners, it could of been so much better if my QQ had held up against the mighty AJ, but I did hit quad Q's vs KK earlier in the tourney, so can't grumble too much.

One other good tilt story, was when I was soo fcked off with Grand Slam, I decided to jump on a $1/$2 NL table on Mansion to pent some aggression (bear in mind I play 25c/50c) I sat down with $100, waited for the big blind to come round, where I was dealt 99. 4 limpers into the pot so I decided to take the freebie and the flop came down a wonderful A92. I checked it, so did the did the table, the turn bought an happy 6 for me, I bet the pot, got one caller. The river dropped the wonder card for me being another Ace. So I bet my FH, I then get raised, so I push and get an insta call from my wonderful new friend who had limped utg with AK, the $205 pot come scooping my way and I jumped ship with my ill gotten gains, I hate hit and runners, but somehow this seemed the thing to do.

So overall, I finished the month about $300 up, not quite as much as I liked, but hopefully I won't have anymore losing months for bad beat.

So what will November bring. After speaking to my Mentor Jeff, I have decided to play more 6 seaters to hopefully improve my game and aggressiveness and hopefully bring in a good month to catch up where I was with Bad Beat a month ago. I am in no rush to become a trader like some seem to be, I am happy to grind it out and slowly become a better player, eventually becoming a trader and recieve the benefits that it brings.

On the home front I have invested in a nice new Dell PC with a 24" monitor, dual screened this with a 19" that I had and still using my old PC for other stuff, so its poker poker poker all the way. Just gotta make sure I put the poker tables on the 24" and not the lesbo porn......hmmm

Cya at the tables.
Goth