The Downswing Continues

I had another disastrous day yesterday. Without going too much into the details, I basically got destroyed despite sitting at several awesome tables with multiple 40+VPIP fish. Essentially, after breaking even for so long, I tried to force the action and make something happen. I isolated fish with almost any two and 3-bet the hell out of anyone who tried to isolate them. Although I was definitely making a small error preflop by doing so, I figured I could make up for it with my better play postflop. Unfortunately, this plan couldn’t have gone any worse. I never seemed to make a hand against the fish and simply found myself throwing away continuation bets and double barrels everywhere. My image was getting worse and worse and the fish couldn’t/wouldn’t fold bottom pair. Soon I was faced with the unenvious situation postflop of having to triple barrel people off ace high or having to instantly give up on any flop I missed (not fun when you have no showdown value to begin with).

Now, I know that when your image is this bad you should either quit or slowdown but I couldn’t bring myself to do either. Quitting would mean passing up on some very easy money, a relatively rare occurrence at MSNL (at least for me)! And slowing down would mean letting other people get to the fish first or letting the fish leave before they got stacked. The second outcome would really be letting the fish off the hook...

So persevered I did and several hours later I was stuck 4K. Great...

To make matters worse, if I decide to stick to any semblance of bankroll management, I have to move back down limits now. My last big downswing came when my bankroll was at a peak so I could absorb the loss and continue playing 2/4 and 3/6. This time, however, I’m left with barely over 20 buy-ins for 2/4 which, from experience, I can safely say is not enough for my volatile style.

I’ve decided to cash out 2K to reward myself for the hours I’ve put in this year and to remind myself that, on the whole, I’m very fortunate to be making significant money playing what is essentially a video game for adults.

I’ve also decided to move $650 to Full Tilt Poker to play some heads-up. My biggest problem at MSNL was playing in 3-bet pots so I’m hoping that messing around in some heads-up games (where playing 3-bet pots is mandatory) will allow me to improve in this area. I don’t in any case feel like grinding six-max for a while now so I think a change of scenery will be beneficial by itself.