Running bad at poker, but good at life :)
This week did have a few good poker days, at least. School’s going well, as is the running regimen, so I’m altogether pretty happy in spite of not running white hot at poker at this particular point in time. I’m glad for that, because in spite of how much I have played and how many swings I’ve experienced, I always have a hard time not letting poker affect my mood too much one way or another. The wife and I are taking a 4 day / 3 night vacation for our 6th anniversary to Asheville, NC the weekend of October 19th, so we’re gearing up for that. I have classes every weekday, so I thought I would have to miss some school… but as it turns out, my Thursday and Friday classes are with the same Biology professor (the lab and the lecture on separate days) and he is going to be out of town on those exact days I would have missed! My sister is going to watch the kids for us, which is a welcome gesture considering she and her daughter have been living with us rent-free for about a year.
I think I played well for all but one day this week. For some reason, I had an evening jog that really kicked my ass and I was in a fog the next day. Every time I got 3-bet I was going mental, and I think I tried 3 4-bet bluffs in a row and had them all fail, which put me on big monkey-tilt. I also 4-bet/called AQ for value against some spewtard and got shown AK as always, which was pretty frustrating. One adjustment I’ve been working into my game is taking advantage of players who play too loose to 3-bets; that is, they don’t usually either 4-bet or fold, but usually call. That allows you to reraise a wider value range. For instance, instead of reraising JJ+ and AK for value with random garbage as bluffs, you widen your value range to, say, KJ+, AJ+, 99+ and even some Axs and Kxs and don’t bother having a pure “bluff” range. In order for this to really add to my game and not be a detriment, I have got to get better at my postflop play in 3-bet pots, so it’s sort of a trial by fire. It will definitely be worthwhile if I can make it stick, though, as I’ll need to exploit a small edge like that to the maximum if I want to be a successful midstakes player.
As it stands, I’m up about 1k in winnings and 450ish in rakeback through close to 15k hands this month. It could certainly be a lot worse, and I’m trying to keep that in perspective. Fortunately, my bankroll is healthy, so I don’t have that worry to contend with. I’ll be sticking with 200NL 6-max for probably the remainder of the month after my horrible 100NL HU session wrecked my confidence there a few days into the month. Here’s hoping the grind will be kind from here on out!
October 8th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Ah good to read your posts again. I think you;re on vacation now and so am I! I think we both deserve one lol.
Enjoy yourself Man!