You might not have noticed, but I've been missing....

...and I could tell you it's because of 'around the world race' or 'secret mission' - but they'd just be a load of rubbish.

It's just that we had a fairly hellish time since Christmas. 

But after a few weeks away from the keyboard and poker and life in general, I'm coming back.....

NOW FOR A WARNING!!!!!

Beware 'LIFE TILT'

As I have said we had a rough period around Christmas, for respite from our woes I kept playing poker, and boy did I find out the hard way, that when you play with troubles it's way worse than the poker tilt caused by a bad beat or two......I managed to demolish 90% of my bankroll before I got the message!

So I finally worked it out, I stopped playing, reading, thinking about poker. Stopped spending so much time on the net, found the remote for the telly, and watched inane drivvle (the stuff wives like) - ER, Bones, blah, blah...junk

I've been playing about 3 weeks now, starting off slow, one table at a time, back down to the $2 SnG's, gradually regaining my confidence, I'm back to a mixture of  $2 -$6 SnG multitables, I've got my bankroll back to a little over $200 (from a low point of $57.63) and finally visiting the forum.

I've got a lot of reading to do, and maybe a comment or six....

LIFE TILT CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR (POKER) HEALTH

still reading the science and learning the art.

Something I do remember, is some posts about Bankroll for SNGs, it really is 50x BuyIn, even if you're just running bad, not playing worse and running bad.  So if there's up's & down's within that range don't jump to conclusions about it, expect it.

Man, I am running bad today, 92 hands, won 4, lost 88!  I prefer cash, because when you're "stuck" due to bad luck, if you don't get affected by it, there's often good chance to play way out of it.

SNG's drive me nuts, when you're near the money, someone calls your AK move with KJ, you think yeh!  And they make the broadway str8 on turn and river.  Somehow much, much harder to take, as you play far fewer hands and each one is much more critical.

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 FToP says everytime you are outdrawn giving the wrong odds, you actually won something!

If only the accountants at my Poker Site would agree.  Money men think so short term...

but the kind of tilt that is caused by life and not by bad beats.  It took me only a few days to go through over $300 t on Sng's and mtt, and about $200 on cash tables!

Not a bad run, just playing badly when I shouldn't have been at all!

Thanks for the wb...

still reading the science and learning the art.

I’ve been through that strike zone too. Like a ball player it seems I simply cant find my game. My strategy is always wrong for the hand. I’ve come to the conclusion that any thing that is not right in my life is reflected in my game.

I started with $50 and made $500 in the first week, playing limit ½ and 2/4 games. To be frank I was getting very lucky. If it was a draw I called, no matter how bad the draw. I didn’t realize how bad I was playing, but in fact was full of myself. The streak ended, I didn’t notice and kept making those draw calls, there is a draw every single hand. I bottomed out at $50 again, wow what happened? The site must be one of those sites!

I stopped, did a time out fumed and moped for days. I even wrote the site and let them know how unhappy I was about my bad luck, lol. Those guys got to love dealing with mentally unbalanced players. It finally passed, I got better, sorta, lol.

I decided it was limits fault and went with very low blind N/L. I decided to fold any draw that wasn’t at least on the better end and early. In other words the river is a lot of money away for a long shot.

It took months to multiply that sad $50, but I went forward at least.

I’ll get to the point now.

I mostly play online from the very beginning. People, phones, pets, kids, wives, not to mention web surfing. all want your attention at that critical moment. Either ignore them, not good, sit out or get out if possible.

Attention!

I play not less than 2 and rarely more than 6 hours at a time. I want nothing at all to interrupt me, so timing in my day, life is critical. %100 of my attention is required to make money and have a good time. Any thing less and I’m doing neither, just wasting time gambling.

My bankroll is happy to report this is was a good decision.

I know, I know, I'll be right there Hon, hang on untill the Big Blind comes around!

As FL involves, many opportunities to draw correctly, and/or incorrectly it is rather important to be on the 'better end'.  That actually often involves actually raising on good draws, and in very loose-passive games, calling on flop on some rather weak draws sometimes.

There's plenty of ppl out there, consistently winning money at FL poker, and rather more consistently losing it!

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 FToP says everytime you are outdrawn giving the wrong odds, you actually won something!

If only the accountants at my Poker Site would agree.  Money men think so short term...