Flowers for Heff - but cheering up!

  With the WSOP starting up this week, I'm thinking back to 2006, and when I started this blog.

 

  Over about two years of play, I had taken an initial bankroll and grew it slowly but surely to over 7x it's original size. I satellited into the WSOP Main Event, though I did not make it past day one, had won a few online tournaments and was generally playing well, especially in cash games. I felt confident and sure that I was an above-average player - not a great player, but smarter than the average bear.

 

  I don't know what's happened since. After another tragic session last week (how do I manage to lose 40-50 bets at 5/10 HORSE and O/8 in just three hours) I have now managed to grind myself back down to the initial bankroll stake from 2004. I'm not playing any WSOP events this year - not that I was planning to, due to marriage/moving to new house/honeymoon happening right smack dab in the middle of it - but even if I had the time free, I've played myself out of affording those events for the time being.

 

   It's strange. I have to know more about the game than I did a year ago, but I'm playing worse than ever. I guess the games really have gotten harder since the UIGEA, and I'm not keeping up.

 

  Six months ago I was winning pots the size of my current bankroll now. I've gone from a winning 200NL player to getting routinely stacked at 100NL That's a really disappointing sentence to read.

 

It's like the only time I get action is when I'm crushed.

I have no fold equity whenever I raise or check raise.

I get three bet A LOT when I raise flops or turns and have to fold.

I am the king of pushing a second or third best hand in a big pot.

There's a theory, tongue-in-cheek, that says, "bet, bet, bet, because no one ever has anything."

Heff's Corollary is "bet, bet, bet, and never get called by a worse hand.":-(

 

  My last three live sessions in AC have been break even at best, huge dumpage at worst. The simple facts are, I've turned into a losing player, and I have no idea why.

 

 Jenn thinks it's because I've had so much on my mind this year, and just can't be as focused as I was in 2006. I mean, I think my leaks aren't technical, but emotional, and I'm making mistakes that I rationally know are wrong but do them anyway - but I can't be sure about this.

 

  All through this year, my tilt monkey anger has gotten worse and worse. I'm fine at the beginning of a session, but sooner or later someone spikes a card when I've got them crushed, or I miss a huge draw where half the deck makes my hand, or the villain makes a bad play and sucks out, or I jam into a virtual nut hand - and then I just go completely apeshit.

 

  I can't even begin to count how many brutal sessions started out with a small loss, then a couple of bad beats here and there, and then the avalanche ensues, and I run a two figure loss into three.

 

  I'm to the point now where I know I'm running bad and playing bad, but I can't tell how much of it is variance - how much of it is the price of being an active, aggressive player who would rather bet than check/call - and how much of it is just being a completely pissed-off idiot who is just spewing chips into better players who are trapping me, and only playing back at me with the goods and folding marginal hands.

 

  Obviously, I can stop playing for a while - I really won't have the time after mid-June to do much of anything for a month - but that won't exactly solve the underlying pokah problem. Arrgh. I just feel incredibly stupid lately, like the IQ points are just draining out of my head as we speak - Flowers for Algernon, or whatever.

 

  I'm always seeing the clouds and ignoring the sunshine in my life. Maybe I need a mantra or a mission statement - or Jenn's optimistic disposition :-)

 

Lloyd Dobler: "Why can't you be in a good mood? How hard is it to decide to be in a good mood and be in a good mood once in a while?"

 

Maybe that's it!  Either that, or I need a pet squirrel.

 

On the other hand, over the Memorial Day weekend, I've done a lot around the house, hosted some friends from out of town, barbecued on a new grill, spent some good time with Jenn, and even finished second in a freebie bar tournament when I just relaxed, thought good thoughts and just played my game with a bunch of familiar faces.

Hey, even Hugochavezlovechild is in first place! (Go Magglio Ordonez, Oliver Perez)

 

So, maybe attitude is everything. or something like that.

 

T-minus three weeks to getting hitched. That should be fun... ;-)

 

Heff