Actually feeling tilted

This is the first time in a LOOONG time I've actually felt a little tilted. I guess the last time I remember it happening was while I was in Las Vegas last Nov with a bunch of guys from Canada's Poker Forum and losing a 500x big blind pot to a guy that hit runner runner full house to beat my flopped flush (all-in on the flop when I flopped it, he had overpair without the suit on board).

Back tonight, recently I received a bonus offer from Full Tilt Poker for $500, and obviously poker players can't turn down free money. So I asked Pinhead to ship me some moneys on Full Tilt so I can grind away at this bonus. While I enjoy Full Tilt's cash game, I really like their Super Turbo tourneys where you start with 300 chips, blinds 15/30 and each level is 3 minutes long. I know the structure is a crap-shoot, but after awhile, you are actually able to label some players and exploit their style. This structure also allowed tons of volumn, but obviously has HUGE variance. I've had mixed results but was still turning in a positive ROI in about 200 that I've played up until tonight.

Tonight came around, and I couldn't get anything going. I've always believed that running bad isn't just about losing the consecutive coin-flips, or losing while in a domination situation, but running bad also consists of no one having a hand when you have a big hand, or having a big hand but running into bigger hands, etc etc. And tonight was just one of those nights. Not only was I losing the 70/30, 60/40, 50/50, but I was simply getting slapped around by deck. Having AA in the BB while everyone folds, shoving AJ in the SB and running into AQ on the BB in a BvB battle. It was just frustrating - and by the time I got to type this blog entry, I honestly felt a slight bit of tilt setting in.

I really hate for my blog to become rants about bad beats and running bad - and I honestly thought I have been able to remove any emotional attachment to the results of this game, but I guess I still got some work to do.

On the bright side, Poker Stars is running a Dream Job promotions tomorrow (Sunday) at 7pm that I have been looking forward to for awhile. As of this writing, there is 226 players registered, meaning the overlay is at a whopping $100K right now. Obviously I expect a high number of last minute entrants, but this tourney will still have an overlay and hopefully I have saved my run-good for this tourney as it would be pretty awesome to win it.

Anyways, hopefully the next blog entry wouldn't be as negative as this one and the previous one!

Back at the Grind

So it seems lately I've found the desire to put some hours in at the virtual felt again. Nothing big, nor massive number of tables, just getting back into a bit of sit-and-go's and a bit of PLO. Ran pretty hot for the first couple of nights and positioned myself nicely in the "Battle of the Planets" in the high orbit section. However tonight just wasn't my night where overpairs were cracked by underpairs, players stacking off in dominated situation on the bubble and winning the 30/70. So now I need to essentially win 10 of my last 12 SnGs to be able to finish in the top 10 for the high orbit.

I went deep in a couple of tourneys (finished 28/1000+) but still short of the huge score. Coming up next is probably back at trying to grind out an Aussie Millions or PCA seat...

Just a few hands to illustrated my night.
QQ < 77 AIPF

Another 2 outer

Another one

Yeah..it's been pretty ugly.

Poker Stars Listed

Over the last couple of days, I`ve been listed by Poker Stars under their Poker Stars Twitter list on Twitter. I think that means I need to start updating this more often and maybe make this blog look better and more pleasing to the eyes. I`m sure I`m better off finding a webmaster over doing this myself though, as I am definitely not someone who is savvy with programing and web-design.

Bonus Clearing

Nothing new to report on, but I just realized recently that I have like $800 of bonus to clear on Doyle's Room. I guess I might have to move my business to Doyle's Room from Cake poker in my attempt to satellite into the Aussie Millions.

One tough game

Just had another tough session...played for about a stretch of 5 hours, and signed up for essentially all of the low-stakes tourney that started within 2.5 hours time span (buy-in from $2-$20 approx), and mixed in a couple of the $12 180-man turbos to fill up after I bust from a tourney.

I was able to accumulate a stack in almost all of the tourneys that I played tonight, but somehow just ended up losing the stack well short of the money. Not all of them were bad beats, but most of them were. Some were just me being overly aggressive and overplayed a few hands, but it's tough when you get players to put 160BB in the pot preflop with AA vs. their AK and they somehow make a flush from it. So other than a couple of min-cashes, there isn't really anything to show for tonight.

First real session in...quite awhile

It's been a good...3 months + now since I've put in any sort of an online session. Tonight's session wasn't even planned, but it sort of just happened when I ended up being wide awake at 2~ in the morning with nothing better to do.

For the last 2-3 months, I just never felt the motivation to play and put in hours. To me, poker will always be a hobby/game. I don't foresee myself ever taking it and turning it into a full-time gig. Therefore, as much as I have been able to take adv. of the poker boom the past few years (although not as much as others have obviously), I will only find myself playing it when I'm motivated to play, and having fun while doing it. As a result, the only hands I've played up until tonight, were essential micro-stakes games where I would fire up if a friend was playing, or just to see whether I was ready to take the plunge.

Back to tonight, I guess once again motivated by my desire to win a PCA/Aussie Millions package, I decided to load up a few MTTs and just get back into the game again. This is the first time in awhile (basically since I came back from the WSOP) where I played, with no other distractions. No MSN/Google-Talk/TV/Movie/Xbox 360/etc etc. It was simply 6 - 8 tables (which became 4 real fast) on my screen, and me trying to accomplish something.

Getting back into it, I once again received a full kick in a nuts, a reminder truly how cruel this game can be. I'm going to spare the details* (I will post about it...but it will be the last paragraph), but it was a frustrating session to say the least.

However, on the flip side, I found myself slowly being "back in the zone" where I made a couple of thin value-bets, a couple of relatively big river calls, and even a couple of bluffs. CLEARLY the few hands I played tonight is in no way an indication that I'm playing my best, I mean for all I know, all these things I was doing right was merely by luck/chance, but at the end of the day, at the end of the session, I feel the motivation coming back. A motivation to once again put myself in a spot to learn, to challenge myself, and more importantly, enjoy my time while doing it.

What's next for me? In life wise, I'm finally finishing up school, and joining the real-world (aka. starting a career) is on the horizon. Which means, having the opportunity to travel around to different parts of the world might come to end shortly. Which means...over the next little while, I feel as though my goals will be to satellite into various live events all over the world. If at the end of the day, I end up stuck in Canada the entire winter, while I will be disappointed, at least I HOPE I can say I tried my best.

So hopefully, I will be traveling down under for the Aussie Millions come Jan 2010.

*DO NOT read if you do not want the detail of my session. (aka the bad beats and the cold deck)
-out of the 6 MTT that I busted out in, 5 of the bust out (or majorly crippling) hands had most of the money go in the pot when I was at least a 2 to 1 favourte
-the other hand, well, KK > AA all-in preflop