long week

It was a long and frustrating week of poker that has ended on an uptick. I have been playing NL400 and NL600 this month, and while I had mixed results at those levels in Dec (I won but it was such a short sample it didn't really mean anything), I've been running and playing horribly this month.

I made several really really bad mistakes, as well as the fact that PokerEV has me running about $1500 under expectation. All of that combined to me losing 10 buy-ins at NL400, which for those of you who don't want to do the math is $4000. Now I don't get really upset at poker losses because they come and go, but I was pretty frustrated. So after all of that I decided to drop back down to NL200 and start going back to grinding more limit.

The fact of the matter is that the NL400 games haven't been that good on FTP lately. I was sitting at a lot of tables with 4 regulars and maybe one somewhat fish. Frankly I just don't have enough of an edge to be sitting in those games. While I feel very comfortable in my ability to think about and analyze no limit, I think I still make some mistakes in the moment. And I don't know that I'm good enough to beat tables like that enough for me to be spending the majority of my poker time grinding those games.

The good news is that once I moved back to my main game (6max LHE) things started to pick back up. I can sit in most limit games and have an edge, even if there are a couple of regulars at the table. As long as I have a good seat I think I'm probably a favorite. I don't think there are too many players playing the 5/10-15/30 that are favorites over me in that game. Certainly if the cards don't go my way, or I have a bad seat I can be in a tough spot. But when I game and table select a little my limit results have really been good. I've been running super hot, so I expect the poker gods will curse me after this blog, but I was able to make back almost all of my losses over my last 3k hands of limit.

I also moved back to playing NL200 where I plan on winning 10 buy-ins before taking another shot at NL400, and then I'm only going to take a shot if I find a good game. So despite being almost $4k in the red at one point this month I'm now just about even. And we still have 2 and a half weeks left.

The good news is that I played almost 12k hands in the last 8 days. Which puts me on pace for a 40k hand month which would be the most since I went pro. I really should be playing +30k every month. But sometimes I just don't feel like forcing myself to sit in not great games when I could be working out, going out, or spending time with Katy. So I'm hoping getting past the holidays and getting back into a routine can help me really up my number of hands this month and through the spring.

I also had a nice result in the Chiptalk tourney on thursday which I hadn't played in for a few months. I ended up getting HU and had my opponent all-in with JJ against A7 but he hit the A. then he won a race where I had 33 and he had A9 to bust me out. I can't really complain though because I got lucky a few times earlier in the tourney, especially when I spiked a K at the final table after I moved in with KQs against a late position AQ raise and got called. It was still nice to have a result in tough field like the CT tourney, with a lot of folks who I discuss poker and life with on a regular basis.

I also have a few new clients for my cash game coaching that I advertised through CT. I'm excited because working with other players to improve their game always gets me more excited to play poker. Talking and working with others reminds me why I love the game, makes me think how lucky I am to play for a living, and helps me to refocus on solid winning play that should be everyone's foundation.

hope everyone has a great weekend, and enjoy the great football games on today and tomorrow. More importantly the Blue Devils open conference play against UVA tomorrow night, so I'm excited for that.

peace and fish grease

themightyjim