The world put to rights

Something seems to be up, I am being prepared for a fall I think. Things have been going well lately, without being spectacular. The last 3 tournies I have played in the Fitz have resulted in 2 splits and a 4th place, and add to that a decent, if small by that game standards, profit in the 100 Omaha, and the world is suddenly a less shit place.

I am not suffering bad beats much lately and that is where things are different than last month. One thing I need to start doing though is doing better in bigger fields. Most of the tournies I win or come in the top 3-4 are around the 30-50 entries mark, but where there are 70 or more I don't seem to last the pace which is very frustrating. I think I know what the cause of this in general is but the paradox for me is that I think this aspect is one of the strong points of my game. Confusing isn't it?

Brief explanation about the above is as follows. I am not a loose, gamble type player most of the time. This is not to say I don't mix my game up, but mixing your game up is very different to being a loose player. Everyone knows that I am not a loose player, so I do not get the action I need a lot of the time that I have big hands, and I do not make loose calls that might double me up at important parts of the tournament. Personally I prefer not to take a 40-60 shot unless I am in a shortstack position, but it seems to me that a lot of the types that do well in tournaments are the type that put their money in there and seem to win a far higher percentage than they should. The reason why this is also one of the better aspects of my game is that is means I rarely go into hands unless on a shortstacked steal, as a big dog.

Maybe I will experiment with that a bit at some stage, but unless it is in the rebuy period of a multi-rebuy tournie I can't justify doing that in my head. It is in essence a shit or bust approach to the tournie that produces either a big stack that can be used to bully the table or will ensure you get an early seat at a cash game. Who knows if I will try this soon? I don't think I am giving any trade secrets away when I am saying it goes against my natural game anyhow.

Last weekend I went over with the Fitz crowd to the Gutshot club in London for the twice annual challenge match. Once again we didn't win the team event but we should have. We kept getting outdrawn, their shortstacks kept surviving despite being in as big underdogs several times when getting knocked out would have given us the win. I also played in the £200 Pot Limit Omaha tournament over there with 40 minute blinds, and 6k starting stack. I enjoyed this game up to the point when I got knocked out when the board would not pair up which I thought was very unobliging of it. I finished in 19/57 runners and with £4k as first prize it would have gone down very nicely indeed.

I hada very enjoyable weekend in general though, playing poker on Friday night and saturday afternoon, and drinking on Friday afternoon (a few anyways) and Saturday evening onwards (a lot). I didn't play any cash games at all over there but from what I seen and heard from others, I am glad I didn't. I met a nice bunch of people over there though and I look forward to trying to help take the cup back for the Fitz next time, even though we take it far less seriously than they seem to.

I am not playing online as much as I had hoped I would, mostly due to my short little span of attention (as Paul Simon would say), and partly due to the fact that my PC is playing up on me in a most mystifying way. I am up a few buyins though in the games I have played, but it is still only a very part time thing for me. Also, due to my mystifying experience I cannot access my PokerTracker database anymore and it is really irritating me.

Ah well. Oh, and if anyone is bored play an online game called curveball. I think it is great and very addictive. I can get to level 7 without losing a life nearly all the time. about 50% of the time I get past level 7 (It took me ages to get past it first), and I have only got to level 9 a couple of times. Good hand eye coordination required!!!

See you at the tables.