Ouch and ouch again!

I’ve been debating back and forth on whether I want to go play the WSOP Ladies Circuit Event at Caesars on Monday. The buy-in was $340, a little higher than what I’m normally playing, so that’s a big consideration for me. But since I’ve stopped trying to ‘fix’ my game, I’m much more comfortable playing the way I’m used to, and felt good and I really wanted to go. I guess the thought of being able to take a day off work to go play, was the deciding factor, and I convinced myself to go play. I think I was going to go regardless; it just took a while for me to come up with enough reasons to justify the buy-in.

So the tournament started with 160 players – which was way more than I expected, given the fact that it’s on a Monday. Apparently I’m the only one with a job!!!

My first table was very passive – I got a couple of good hands there, QQ flopped a set against AA, unfortunately the 3 spades on the board slowed down the betting significantly, but I still managed to get some chips. Then I got a straight flush with my 2s9s, when the board was KsQsJs, turn a blank, the river brought the 10s, not a very exciting straight flush given that the As was gonna make a royal – luckily no one else had the As and I won that one too.

Got moved – players were noticeably tight and there were not many showdowns. A pre-flop raise followed by a continuation bet in general won the pot. For a while, at least.
JJ Liu got seated on my right, she was short-stacked however, and after only a couple of hands she pushed with 99’s into a raiser, got called by a big Ace and got knocked out when the Ace hit.

I doubled up when Mel (pokerchix AskMelanie) raised UTG, I reraised with AK to isolate, but of course she knew it and pushed all in. I figured she has JJ or QQ, I thought with AA or KK she would just smooth-call the raise and now I was facing a dilemma. I have to hit my A or K and then even then I might not be good – on the other hand, I had only 2500 chips left if I fold and I convinced myself it was worth the gamble. I called, she had QQ, I hit a K and doubled up. Phew!!

Then the fun began. A short, seemingly confused Asian lady was seating next to me, to my right. Maybe she was just not fluent in English, but when she talked, she confused me more than when she played. She made some ridiculous calls and bets, and I couldn’t figure out if she was clueless or hyper-smart. A little while later it all became clear though. She min-raised in early position, I called with AK. Flop came K-J-x, she bet, I raised, she pushed all in. Based on her previous play, I was pretty convinced I had her beat and I called. She turned over QJ – YES!
The turn is another Jack – NO!!!!! That’s just not fair. Now I am short stack again!!!

Couple hands later Mel pushed all in, I called with all but 500 of my chips with 99. Mel had K3, and the flop is KK-x, turn is a 3 just to rub it in and I’m left with one 500 chip! I’m UTG, the blinds are 200/400 with 25 ante, I put my last 475 in with K7 and got two callers. On the turn, the one caller bet, other lady groaned and folded. Better had KQ, but I hit my 7 on the river and tripled up. Girl who folded, was disgusted and said she folded 88, figuring the better had her beat since she bet.
I went all in next two hands and doubled up and won some blinds and antes and I was up to around 4K again. Still in bad shape, but at least I had something to work with now.

OK, so at this point we have 50 people left out of the 160, payout is 18 places, so with a lot of patience I and a lot of luck I might just get lucky. They move me to a new table, I got seated in seat 9, next to a really great lady who shared her chocolate with me when I complained I was hungry (just for the record, I thought she was great before she shared her stuff with me!).

Now there were some dynamics at this table, apparently the two big stacks were gunning each other. Chips were flying back and forth between them, the younger Asian girl seemed tilting like crazy, and the older grey-haired woman just happily calling and raising, adding fuel to the fire. I’ve seen an all in push with an OESD, getting called by a gutshot straight draw – only to win a HUGE pot with a pair of 4’s. The trouble was, I was dead smack in the middle of the two ends of this battle.

I picked up AJ and pushed – collecting antes and blinds. Very next hand I have AJ again, this time I raised. Asian girl looked antsy after folding previous hand and she and the BB called. Flop came J high with two hearts, I pushed. The Asian girl insta-called with 5h3h – and my stomach turned. Turn is a black card, river is an Ace, but the Ace of hearts and I’m heading out in 44th place or so. I wanted to throw up a little. I don’t mind the calls from players when they’re behind, I really don’t – it just hurts when they get lucky – and in this tournament the two times that they got lucky, took me out of the tournament.

I headed over to the V to play a little Omaha H/L, made a little profit and decided to go play the 7pm at PH. Long story short, I got busted with Q-10 against 10-2 when he caught a 2 for second pair. Oh well.

Felt a little better when I took 4th out of 180 on Pokerstars last night in a $4 tournament, not a big win, but a win nevertheless, and sometimes I think the fields of the micro stakes tournaments are harder to beat!!!! Really really takes some patience to make it deep in those.

Tonight I think I’ll take a break and play some WoW. Maybe poker will miss me……

Fixing my game

It’s been a while – but I’m still alive and by some miracle survived a poker depression and am still playing! Not that I ever wanted to give it up, but I’ve reached a point – well-known to many poker players, I assume – where I wondered whether I should give up on poker, because it sure as heck seemed to have given up on me!

I’ve been keeping track of my tournament playing since October 2007. At the end of February I’ve played in 50 tournaments (buy-ins between $60 and $200), and cashed in 21 out of the 50, which by my standards, are pretty decent.

So then I decided it’s time to ‘fix’ my game. Most of the time I make it to the money and/or get to the final table as short stack, on the odd occasion I’ll end there with a decent stack, and that bothered me. There must be a way that I could change my game to accumulate more chips along the way. I started reading – poker forums, book, strategy articles, basically anything poker I could lay my hands on. And along the way I tried to apply that to my game - of course with disastrous results. In March I played in 15 tournaments and cashed in only 2, which made March the first month I didn’t show a profit. April didn’t start out better – I was completely lost, and my game went down the drain. Clearly what I tried to apply, didn’t work with my playing style or my personality and I couldn’t pull it off. I felt like a complete idiot at times. I played online and suck-out after suck-out (which I believe most of them were because I put myself in unfavorable situations) just added to my despair.

I had to rethink it all as well as my approach to this game I’m so passionate about. I had to evaluate – why was I able to win before and not now? Obviously changes I tried to make, didn’t work for me.

I came to some realizations – I believe (now) that there is a place in the poker world for players like me – players that are not super-aggressive. I am not the kind of player that can pull off bluffs like it’s second nature, and now I also know that in order to be a winning player, I don’t have to be.
Selective aggressiveness works much better for me, and instead of looking for opportunities to pull off some creative plays, I need to wait for the opportunities to present themselves to me. And sometimes it doesn’t happen until late in the tournament, or at all. And that’s ok. There will always be a next time.
I have to play within my comfort zone, and as cliché as it sounds, I have to detach my emotions from my decision-making while playing. Trying to ‘get’ someone is most likely going to backfire. There’s a very dangerous gray area where ‘playing the player’ often turns into you being the one getting ‘played’ - by your own actions.

Bottom line - if it’s not broken, don’t try to fix it!