The road to my first bracelet

Yes it is. Just picture yourself knee deep in mud in a trench on a cold october night just after the rain stopped. The last attack left you almost all by yourself. The only sound you hear comes from those flares crossing the sky under their little parachutes, making all those weird shadows move accross the battelfield. Then suddenly, a whistleblow from the ennemy’s trenches. They’re coming again. You don’t think you are going to make it this time. The dealer deals you two cards. With your dirty and trembling fingers, you lift the first one: Ace of spades. You lift the second one: Ace of heart. The best possible starting hand. But for some reason, you are not happy about it. Flashbacks from the last few attacks come to haunt you: Your AA all in vs JJ, he hit his set. All in vs KT offsuit, he made a flush with his king. AA in the BB on a table full of loose passive players, they all fold to you. You want to grab those damn aces and throw them away. You want to dig deeper and hide. You want raise your hands and surrender but you just can’t. You know you have the best possible starting hand and the odds favor you. So you are going to focus on the present, every thing else is pointless, and you are going to play those aces the way you are supposed too. It is folded to you. You raise from the Cut Off. BTN folds. You know SB is an aggro and has been terrorizing the whole table for the last few orbits. You hope he does not fold. Please don’t fold. He shoves. BB folds. You call with a nasty thought: Good bye asshole. Let’s hope the poker Gods don’t make you pay for that thought. LOL.

This is what the last 12 days of poker have looked like. I sit at the table wondering what’s going to happen to me. Certainly not the right mindset. It is true that my AA won me nothing but made me lose buyins. It is true that my good draws that I like to play aggressively never hit. It is true that in 3 days (I stopped counting after that) I was dealt 116 pocket pairs and flopped 1 set. I won’t even talk about flushes. They are like UFOs; I’ve heard about them but never saw one. BUT………

This is not the first time I have gone through this. I really think that poker is 80% between your ears and 20% at the tables. And when nothing works for that long, you have to review that 80%. That means, stay away from the tables for sometimes. I should have done that 7 days ago. Maybe tonight should be anything non poker related. Tomorrow, poker related stuff but no playing. I should focus on 4 things: Anything Tommy Angelo related, hand reviews looking for mistakes (that I always do), looking for lack of value betting my good hands (that is definitely a leak) and finally, and that is not going to be easy, looking for lack of aggressivity. After 12 days like this, I am sure my aggressivity is gone.

Anyone playing on pokerstars? Do you love their new cash tables? 20-50bb, 40-100bb. It’s hudless time. I guess HEM will need some time to adjust. But it made me realize I might be a tiny bit too dependent of my hud. I took this as an opportunity to learn to take notes and look for tendencies. This is a fulltime job: Play, observe, take notes. But I think it will be worth it. Stats tell you a lot but most of the time, you don’t have enough hands to be accurate. But when you have some good notes on players, and if the little bastards don’t leave the table, you quickly realize that nits and loose passive players are very predictable. They bet what they have.

Hopefully, this annoying episode will end the sameway the others ended, making me a better player.