Killer Fish

I am feeling good better than good great. I think I have finally reached a point of almost complete disconnect from poker. I have pretty much reached the untiltable point. My tilt moments are very brief now lasting about 5 seconds or so (they used to last between 30-60 seconds which I consider long).

As a result I am playing even better than before. This in addition to a few new outlooks I have gained I believe will greatly affect my poker progress and allow some good growth.

Ps – BR challenge is still going well ok FT slow but well.

PPs – My new found tilt management came from playing a lot more live recently (I have never been one to act out in public / heart on sleeve) so it helped me to quickly refocus on what I was doing (ie playing poker).

I continued my bankroll challenge today and almost met my goal. Then low and behold FTP decides to slap me down again. My last two session on FTP have been exactly the same. I have gone up the same dollar amounts both sessions and then hit a wall of variance that sends me right back to break even.

Now I know “dagger” you must be saying “surely you must simply be making minor mistakes that you fail to notice and they are costing you?”. I have considered this in some depth and degree and I have to conclude after a in depth review of my session that this is not the case.

Either way I am up on Stars for the day and still managed to stay slightly up on FT. I am still playing low stakes sngs on both sites on Stars I am getting ready to move up a level however which I am glad to say does not worry me in the slightest.

Today started out fairly well went up and was cruising along and then variance. What is variance really…? Any how back to the story I was multi-tabling and then something happened that does not happen often I started getting amazing hands. Every hand I picked up however got out run big time.

1.20 sngs are drool fest and it pains me to continue to play them just for the sake of building a BR from nothing. These stakes are not a fight of trying to be more skillful its can you beat variance for long enough to move up.

As of right now variance is getting the best of me however if and I say if I can survive this I may just become a true killer fish.

I sat down last night at my first live game in over a year(well technically second). I was a bit nervous but I told myself “I was able to scrap out wins before now I am armed to the teeth with poker knowledge”.

The game itself was 1-2, and the table overall was very very soft. It was the extremely soft aspect that took me a moment to adjust to. The calls made were even more marginal than online and putting players on ranges took longer than expected.

However it was a great testing ground and practice opportunity. The entire time I was focus like a laser calculating pot odds, figuring out Vpip and Pfr, and determining player tendencies. Every single hand weather involved or not I was studying as intensely as I could.

At the end of the night (actually day since I arrived at 7:30pm and left at 9:00am) I had won a nice amount and more importantly had put the skills I have learned to use. The entire experience had solidified one thing the once nitty fish was now a killer fish.

Last month I withdrew from Fulltilt in order to move to Stars and start building a roll. Exactly two days later I get a lovely email from Rakebackpros.com telling me I was now finally eligible (oh how nice).

With only 5 bucks left on Fulltilt I said “Hmmm this will be a good challenge I will try to build from this ala Chris Ferguson method”. That was 8 days ago. At first things went… well south to say the least. My BR dropped to 2 bucks twice and I came close to busto.

Then it happened I begin to slowly roll it up taking bits and pieces here and there. Sadly I have not put in enough hours at Stars or Fulltilt (which is poor for my BR) but still its gone rather well (better than expected).

I am still unsure even after playing which direction I intend to take later cash or sngs. I have worked quite hard on my sng/mtt game and it shows.

Sidenote For new players looking to build a roll and don’t want to invest a lot I say go for it. Sticking to the smaller stakes and winning is rather easy it simply takes time.

The question has entered my thoughts as I am sure it has entered every poker players “How far can I take this?”. Well we will have to see.