Goin' On a Run...

It's early Sunday morning, and it's been three days since my last poker confession. For some reason I'll never understand, I woke up at 6:00am today after going to bed at 2. And I'm wide awake.

Played a lot of online poker over the last few days and finally went on a good run. Before that tournament on Wednesday (see thebmorekid's website for the info), I had about $165 in my Full Tilt bankroll. After paying $11 and winning $96 ($80 for 1st + $16 in knockouts) I was back around $250. Since then, my limit holdem cash games have been positive as well. I decided to try something different. I bought in to two .50/$1 six-handed tables for 25 big bets each and decided to play very aggressive, even more so than I had been. I feel that one of my leaks as a limit player is not forcing the action enough... and playing shorthanded requires you to do so if you expect to win, especially in limit. Man, it worked like a charm.

I turned that $50 into $100 in about 90 minutes. I was getting pretty average cards, running pretty well in the sense that I was able to avoid most horrifying bad beats, save one. I did raise with KQ, get called.. flop comes K Q 4 rainbow and, long story short, the villian had KK. Luckily the turn was a Jack and it slowed my action on the river from putting in too many bets. But overall, I played aggressive and smart. I paid more attention to the players on my immediate left and right, aiming to steal or re-steal whenever it felt right. These numbers are exact but my numbers were somewhere around the 29.5/15.5/3.50 range.

So, after beginning on January 1st with $300 and being down most of the month, I'm at $310 now. Can't complain much now. The reality is, I've lost a lot of money online due to lack of patience. I play my absolute A-game when I stay patient, as most of us do. And my impatience went further than just my play at the tables. I was playing A LOT of tournaments and non-holdem games. I just can't help myself. I'm the kind of guy who doesn't just want to be good at holdem, I want to be just as crafty at all the games. So I tend to have days where I'm bored and I bounce from game to game. If I'm smart, I think those are the days I should just stop playing and take the day off.

Just thinking out loud...