Forcing It

I played a lot last night. I had about 3.5 hours of free time, and I blew it all playing poker. I’m not sure how many hands I played, but it was a lot. I played a mix of a 10000 man Hubble freeroll tourney on Stars (I imploded with about 150 people left, I was in 40th place when I melted down. In tourneys, I usually have one bad hand that puts me into shortstack mode, then I lose a few hands later when I shove in a good situation with a hand that is the favorite. Last night was no different. I don’t have the hand histories with me, so I can’t post details, but they really aren’t important.

In addition, I played some .05/.10 and some Upoints on UB. I was down about $30 and about 2500 UPoints (1/4 of my Upoints roll). My pal Justin was nice enough to look over about 5 or 6 of hands where I got stacked, and gave me some pointers and some things to think about.

With that, I’m starting to think I’m really forcing things. I think I’ve read too many books, believing the ‘be aggressive’ hype, so I’m pressing marginal hands in games where people cannot fold. I’m getting in as a small favorite and losing, or I’m being outplayed with second best hand. Justin made a good point – ‘why get in as a 55% favorite when you can do it as a 75% favorite’. If you read the literature, many authors would disagree with that, saying that longterm, any edge is good, but I think it has merit. I lot of your chance of winning comes from fold equity, and at this stakes, you don’t have much. I think I was taking the stack commitment idea a little too far.

So, I’m making a few changes while I still have about $200 in my online bankroll, with about $85 on UB and about $135 on Stars. I don’t have everything clear in my mind, but I’m going to take a new approach for the next few weeks (I’m sticking to this until October 1) and see. These include:

No multi-tabling
No buying in for any more than $5.00 at any cash table
Signing up with a forum
Posting one hand from each session in said forum

Things I’m considering, but I’m unsure about:

Moving my UB bankroll to Absolute Poker for a spell – with UB allowing transfers back and forth to Absolute, and the fact that I can sign up for a rakeback account with Absolute, I’m tempted to move it there for a spell. However, I want to see what kinds of limits they have for their games, and what kind of bonus I might get. Either way I’m definitely creating an account. From a money management perspective, I think it makes sense. If I’m going to play, I might as well get some of my rake back, and maybe a bonus out of the deal. At the same time, I’m trying to not focus as much on the money, and instead focusing on playing good poker, which was Justin’s suggestion, so I’m still wishy washy on that.

I’m also considering playing without the HUD on for a bit. I’m making a lot of assumptions based on people’s numbers, and I’m going to reconsider that. I think that information gives you an advantage, but if I’m relying on that for 90% of my decision making because I’m too busy multi-tabling to figure out where I’m at in a hand, that’s not a good thing.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at for the next 5 weeks. I’ll still post regularly.