Random recap of the year since the last post.
Played quite a bit of live poker in the last months of 2011 - cashed a handful of times, but mostly failed to fade 2 outers and inevitably made moves when I was crushed.
Finished out the Flatline season without cashing, save for a money-back chop that I negotiated at 1:30 in the morning on a bat-shit insane 8-game mix of my own design. Anxious to start again in mid-January.
I will also be running and participating in "Worldline" our annual World Series of Poker satellite series. This year it's 20 tournaments, scored as usual, with all of them counting towards a 1K seat.
Found a new home game this year, Eric T. hosts it. Lots of fun, a 20K stack tournament SNG single table with no antes and soft players. Have cashed 3 out of 6 times, and they are getting wise to me, but it still seems like it will be profitable.
HPC has been fairly cruel - either super card dead, or again (as I alluded above) I have been unable to dodge the requisite cards from hell. Haven't cashed there in ages - probably close to 10 tournaments.
Also dabbled the other night at the Bike, found it soft and a good structure for $60, but the inmates are running the asylum over there. Far worse than HPC in terms of dealer abuse and out of control regulars. The Bike makes HPC look positively civilized. Much cleaner card room, but much nastier people.
Had my aces cracked by A10 AIPF at PSP the other night. Delightful, but typical.
I'm ready to start running like Mercier any day now. All set and prepared.
Of course, as a good player Matthew S. pointed out to me in a recent e-mail, when we run bad we tend to play bad in tandem, because we get tilted and our decisions are poor. This is largely true, but of course I'm not playing THAT bad - not nearly as bad as my results in the last six months have shown.
I was up over 1K in winnings from Flatline over 3 years - now I'm just under 800. Stuck 200 for the season. Ready to step back, readjust, and get more patient there. Sven gave me the best advice ever for that league, and this reminds me - I've had dry stretches there before - his advice was, "Good cards will come". This is super true now, with so many new fishy stations swimming about.
Two resolutions:
1
Must must MUST finally get an accurate spread sheet (now that I know how to do them) and keep track of my bank roll in all forms of poker. Hopefully by the end of 2012 I will be able to add back online play (besides Flatline) as there are rumblings of sanity returning to our government.
2
Am going to take the plunge more often into cash game play in card rooms.
Busted in a sick manner one Sunday at HPC and had the afternoon to kill before the 430 second chance - took the opportunity to play $100 NL. HPC's version of small stakes cash game No Limit Hold-Em, blinds at $2 and $3, 100 maximum buy in with $150 max reload. I was shocked, shocked, SHOCKED at how timid the table was and at how SOFT it was. There was one maniac who had no idea what he was doing, I managed to get all his chips and mine in the middle after the turn and he was dead to 3 cards, which of course he hit. Unfazed, I reloaded and promptly stacked him once, twice, three times to finish up over $200 in profit. That, was amazing and a wake up call to me. The word about Vegas cash games is that they are WAY softer than SoCal. Oh really? Looks like I'll have to find out.
For a $100 max buy in table, I figure to budget 3 buy-ins. If I'm felted 3 times, just like a tourney, I walk and wait for the next tournament to begin. It simply appears to be way too profitable to pass up.
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Very excited about 2012 actually - I can't run any worse, and hopefully with a fresh slate I'll be centered enough to make half decent decisions, so when the good cards do finally come, I can make them profitable.
