do it right or don’t bother to do it

i think i’m still half asleep.  odd one today – i’ve been in and out of sleep a couple of times and now i’d better make a day of it before it all gets away from me.  but first i’m unloading some mental baggage here :)

i’m playing at Stars $50NL 6 max now.  i finally broke down and put my poker room avatar up there, which is an abstract piece from H.R. Giger.  i also acheived the Silver Star status, woo-hoo.  i’m there because i found some cash that was laying around forever in an old poker room that went belly up, Stars bought them, and now i had to play off some hands to unlock the monies.  i’m within a week of unlocking it all now.

so, that’s how the bankroll got put up there.  i didn’t crawl from a $500 deposit through 25NL.  although my track record at FTP at $25NL for 2009 is 6.56ptbb/100 over 65k hands, so i suppose i belong just fine. 

this month IS running like january.  i’m playing a LOT better and i’m running fine so the results are showing themselves. i made more in July than i did in 2008, although that isn’t quite saying much.  of course finding something like this is heartening . . .

100k

obviously that’s not my graph, and it’s not a comment on the actual play involved, it’s a comment on the nature of the game – and how i’m blissfully escaping that aspect of it at the moment.

i’m not really going to catalog the changes i’ve made to my game, but i will say that things are sinking in in a way that they didn’t before.  yay.  i guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that there are plenty of fish at 50NL, and that even the regulars make bad plays.  one chap who managed to aceive superNova-deluxe-ninja-of-death-with-the-kung-fu-grip status made me talk out loud the other night.  i think i said “well, you’re only getting called by better on that one mate”.

i think a big change is that now when i’m playing, i’m aware that i’m not just passing time.  i don’t look for something to fill up the spaces and find myself at the poker tables out of habit.  i’m there spending time that could be spent in other very worthwhile pursuits.  so, now i think i’m doing things right because i see a cost involved.  all of the inane babble isn’t poetry to spew to drunk poker buddies.  they’re insights to be used to your advantage.  the math isn’t some sort of trivia – it’s an accurate description of the future. 

so, when i get it in good, and the cards shift the chips into the other pot, it’s like whacking a line drive that someone snares in a gold glove display.  hell, you wait for the pitch and get good wood on it.  job done. 

during a session i was thinking – if i run out of fish, i’m screwed.  then that changed to “if i run out of fish, and these fellows with stars that make bad plays, i’m screwed”.  now i’m thinking – without turning this into some mindless game of crank out the hands at all costs – just put in the time.  there’s an ample supply of fish and bad plays. 

oh, and tighten up a little, and watch a little more closely.  (that naturally occurring break these past months seems to be invaluable).

i need to go add a wentToShowdown stat to my HUD.  and soon i’ll have that bonus cleared, and i realize i’ve been playing this whole time with NO rakeback and NO bonuses.  but with sooo many people at Stars i wonder if having that player pool is worth the same (or more) than RB+bonuses at a smaller site with far less tables to choose from?  considering i start playing at 2:30am EDT. (GMT-4?)

so – no poker tonight (need sleep) and tomorrow is the big day at the park, so probably no poker thursday either.  and now i seem to have cleansed myself of the poker babblings, so off to take on the world. 

Wii Resort Sports – soooo worth it!  :)

July 29, 2009   Posted in: Cards

One Response

  1. btimm - July 30, 2009

    Yeah, you flat out won’t run out of fish at 50nl and furthermore 100nl. Don’t worry about that at all. I haven’t worked out the math, but I believe rakeback > Stars points for players up to 200nl. I think a reg at 200nl makes more on Stars than they do getting rakeback elsewhere, but I am not 100% on that. I don’t think there is a difference honestly from site to site at 50nl, so there are certainly good enough games at other sites with rakeback to justify playing there. That is, if you don’t easily go on software tilt. :D

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