Well I’m a retard. I’m now on a 25K downswing but this one is so different from my last big downswing. For one, it’s basically self-induced. I looked at the break-down of my lifetime stats on HEM and noticed that I was up for everything except 2/4 Full Ring (-$800), 3/6 HU, (-$1700), 5/10 HU and 10/20 6-Max. So what do I do? I decide that before I continue playing 5/10 and 10/20 I should treat poker like a video game and ‘complete’ every level. So I wander over to 2/4 Full Ring and decide to quickly win two buy-ins so that I’m up there lifetime. Obviously within an hour I’m down $2200…I then decide to play 3/6 HU, ignoring the fact I know I SUCK at HU, and a week later I’m down over 12 buy-ins there too…so that’s 10K I’ve lost for no reason.
My 6-max results have also obviously been bad during this time. I should’ve had a 10K session the other night (thanks largely to two double-ups at 25/50) but managed to turn it into a break-even one with bad value-betting, bad bluffs and bad call-downs at 5/10 and 10/20. That’s pretty much my week in a nutshell (I haven’t won many races either!). I think I’ve been a little bit unfocused and my head hasn’t quite been in the right place to the degree that it needs to be to beat 5/10, probably because every session I’m in a little bit of a rush to make money because I know I need to stop playing to do uni work soon.
The good thing about this downswing though is that, unlike last time, I’m not really worried about being unable to get it back. I’m very confident in my 5/10 6-max game, I recovered from a 37K downswing just two weeks ago, and, as I said, half this downswing was just me being a retard. So all in all I’m not too worried. In fact I’m actually quite happy that I’ve gotten the chance to play more HU. It’s allowed me to practice playing more pots where I call an open out of position or a 3-bet in position. Both these scenarios are directly applicable to my 6-max game and are actually probably two of my biggest weaknesses at the moment so hopefully this practice will help me out in the long run.
I’ve also finally decided to get a coach (two actually – iRock and DJ Sensei). I had my first session with iRock last night and it went really well. We reviewed a session I recorded and it was interesting to see the sort of things he pointed out. I could definitely see why he’s one (or more) levels above me. It wasn’t that I did anything terribly bad, it was more that I could do a lot of things slightly better. For example, there was a pot where Leatherass checked back on an AJx flop as the preflop raiser. In the video I said that I wasn’t going to bluff because Leatherass probably had a Jx type hand. iRock said that he would bluff because Leatherass probably had a Jx type hand…
In other news Vegas is now completely confirmed! We had a few last minute pull outs so in the end there’s only going to be six of us in Vegas from the 2nd to the 13th of July (I’ll stay behind if I’m still in the Main Event obviously). We’re staying at the Bellagio for 5 nights and the Mirage for 6. Curiously, the flights cost way more than the accommodation...
Finally, ANZPT Sydney is next week so that should be a nice break from the online scene. I’m hoping that some good cash games run since this will be the first time I’ve really had enough money offline to play the higher stakes live games but from what I’ve heard it’s highly unlikely anything above 10/20 will get off the ground. That’s ok, because I’ll be busy winning the tournament anyway!
