Had a good session last night.

After a good time on Royal's on Sunday, and me running pretty well too, I played a weekend session. I was in Bellevue for all of last week for a work function, and couldn't play a single hand of poker for the whole time. It was brutal. Then on the first part of the weekend I was too busy/tired to get online and play...which brings us to Sunday night.

I decided to play a little PLO8 just one table to knock some rust off, and I was watching a movie at the same time. It was a productive session, but unfortunately was cut off short when I made a nasty error and also got ~cold decked. The error: I had the nut low but NO high to speak of, and I was in position on an equal stack. He checked the river to me and for some reason I bet the pot of 34.00 into him. I was of course hoping he would fold and I was freeroll-bluffing, but instead he called, and I got quartered because he had one pair of 6's for the high and A2 as well for the nut low. The ~cold deck: I had A22x and pot bet the KK2 flop. Got a caller, and we got it in on the turn when the 5 peeled off giving his K5 a better boat. I don't regret it or anything, but that is a crappy spot to be in I will say. You just have no clue when they boat up or don't. I need to try to avoid these situations.

Now to my later session, all NLHE. I decided on 4 tabling as I needed to get warmed up, and also because I didn't want to have to pay such close attention as "Under Seige" was on TV. Truly horrific movie, but you can't NOT watch it when its on the tube.

I had a really solid session where I ran and played well, and made a tidy profit to show for it. I jammed in preflop with QQ on some shitty LAG player who had AK, and I actually held up. I had a few other unremarkable hands but generally ran well and finished strong.

I have been contemplating whether or not to keep running 8 tables or sticking to 4 for a while longer. I am comfortable at 8 tables now, but its getting to be a bit much with record keeping details and a total lack of hand histories and details. Also it does take all of my attention and that can be annoying if I get hungry or if something awesome comes on TV.

Also I am trying to figure out a better way to keep records. I am already like 1 month behind and I just don't see myself going through all of those pages of papers any time soon... Even though I might, I need to get a better system if I am going to be 8 tabling still. I also would like to post a little more often on this blog and playing 8 tables makes that hard too. Any thoughts on this?

Hangingk Aroundt

So after my hellish night of beats, I decided to take a short break from the Challenge. I already knew I would be on mega tilt even the next day, and decided to try some SNG's to limit my exposure. I got 2nd on the 2nd one I played, then lost like 5 in a row. No cashes. Hence the break.

I did however get my poker fix by playing in a series of nightly tournaments put on by a poker website I am a member of called The +1. These were really fun, and we played a whole slew of games. They also served a good purpose by letting me play some poker just for fun, and not really worrying about spreadsheets or anything like that. I played those for the whole week then got back on the horse on the weekend. My initial session was more of the same nonsense from before, but then things evened out and I made progress getting back up to just over $1000.00. I have since gone down from that total a bit, but am basically just hovering around that level.

I started trying to shift about half of my focus over to Omaha Hi/Lo, as I think most players are at a similar level to when Party Poker was still going for Hold'em. Lots of horrific play, and horrific players. I may take some shit for saying it, but I think the .25-.50 at Cake is pretty damn tough. Players are generally nitty and rarely make huge mistakes. You have to value bet all the way down with your good hands or they will just fold. At different times on different sites, I have been able to just jam on people and they would call down really light; no longer. I know I can be profitable at these levels and the levels above, but how profitable? If my edge is relatively slim, I would like to try to branch out and go where the dead money is. I think that the dead money is in Omaha right now. I also think that once the poker public gets bored of Texas Hold Them, that they will naturally merge over to Omaha. It is a flop game very similar to Hold'em, unlike 7 Card Stud, which is drastically different if all you have ever played is Hold'em. (Ante's? Bring in's? wtf?) I want to be there waiting for them when they migrate over.

I have also started to try out 8-tabling. I did 4-tabling for almost the whole duration of this Challenge, but I feel like I am starting to have the capacity for more. I am very comfortable at 4 tables at this point. I talked to a few of the guys from +1 and they recommended jumping up to 8 tables from 4, then adding 2 tables at a time after that until you hit your limit. Apparently you will just know when its your limit. I have had mixed results 8-tabling. I basically have just been hovering, and I know part of it is because my play has suffered a bit during the transition. I also had a rash of bad beats in monster pots, (including 4 under-boats in one session), but did well enough to stay even due to other pots won. One thing that I have noted about 8-tabling is that it's extremely difficult to keep detailed records. I can barely get my buy-ins and re-buys on paper, let alone details on hands etc. On one hand I am fine with this, but on the other I don't want to stunt my poker learning because of it. I think I am going to view the 8-tabling thing as a trial. I will let myself adjust and if I can make a smooth adjustment, I will stick with it. But if I can't, I think I will probably save the 8-table sessions for weekends or times when I have lots of time to give it proper attention. Otherwise I will try to stick to 4 or 6 tables.

So now we are up to date, if only I could summon the will to dig through all of my records and update my spreadsheet...