That's More Like It!

You can't lose what you don't put in the middle... But you can't win much either. -- Mike McDermott - Rounders


So my bid to drop the ring games for a while and get back into the sit and go tourneys lasted about a day. I was having some fun with the tourneys, as it seems I at least can still place in the money on them with acceptable regularity, but it's worse then a grind. In a sit and go, a bad call will only cost you the buyin, but more importantly, it will cost you a huge investment of time. Screw up a call in a ring game, and you get smacked for the same amount, but when the cards fly again, you're still there, and you could conceivably make that money back the next hand. S&G? You're waiting another hour for the chance to make it back.

Of course, those three hours limit the amount you can lose too.

Played about two hours of 50/1 x 3 this morning, and it actually ended up quite well. Unlike the last few days, I managed to end up in good shape on all three tables, taking away about $25 in profit for my trouble. This is definitely good progress. Generally a good day of poker. Early on I got sucked out pretty badly, but I saw the train coming down the tracks and was able to control my losses. I also made some pretty weak calls when I should have been raising, and that probably cost me a few BB over the course of the morning. I still have the problem of giving other players more credit then they deserve for their hands. On the nice side, though, I got pocket aces 3 times and they held up every time. One notable hand. One of my tables did a wholesale rotation of players, in that like 5 people left at once and then 5 people showed up to take their place. 2 of them were certifiable maniacs, and that's what really caught my attention that the table texture had changed. I really didn't want to deal with paying 2BB preflop to play, so I clicked off the "auto post blind" checkbox with the intention of leaving when the big blind got to me. The next hand, I'm dealt AA and I'm on the button. Sure enough, maniac1 in second position raises it, and maniac2, sitting in 4th position re-raises it... Called by a loose guy in the cutoff and I cap it, which they happily call. Flop comes with a king and an ace, two hearts. Bonus. Maniac 1 bets, maniac 2 calls, loosey-goosey calls, I raise. By the time it filters through the two maniacs it's capped with loosey-goosey along for the ride. turn comes another King and betting goes nuts again, only this time Loosey bows out. River comes the third heart and it's 2 to me, I raise it up and the clue train finally hits the both of them and they call. I rake the absolute monster pot, instantly feeling better about being me. I then immediately click the "auto post" button back on and get ready to punish.

I've noticed that, at least recently, the play at 50/1 during the day is still pretty darn bad. Not tragically terrible as it is on the weekends, but sufficiently bad that you still have no idea what the other players are sitting on. This is by and large a Good Thing(tm), but sometimes it leads to some funky suckouts.

More grinding tomorrow before my trip out to the Land of the Blue Hairs. Hopefully I can track down Decker and get some advice about local poker action, otherwise I guess I'll just have to hang at the beach or something. Considering my luck at the live games, this might not be an entirely bad idea.