Although I said to myself I should take a break from poker this weekend, I ended up actually playing in both of the events held by cardschat on sunday. One was supposed to be a NLHE tournament, but through a mixup turned out to be a LHE tourney instead. I hadn’t played limit poker in quite a while, and actually did very well by my standards. I took down almost every pot I entered by aggression, LHE’s key ingredient (right Mr. Paulsson?). I ended up busting out of both of the events (the other being the weekly $10 Sunday special) late in the tournament, and both on bad beats which at least means I went in as a favourite.

I was feeling very confident; so much so that I decided to join a $20 freezout that ran during the $10 sunday buyin, in which I busted early on with a terrible flush draw semi-bluff. I tend to break this rule of mine quite alot when I’m feeling over-confident: Don’t multitable! This is more of a rule that suits me, because I have one of the most one-track minds you could imagine. I literally can’t answer a question until I pry my eyes and ears away from the poker screen. I believe it is a family characteristic from my Dad’s side, being that I become hyper-focused and basically develop tunnel vision when I’m really into something. I get the same way in everything I have a passion for (hockey, music etc); If I’m concentrated, don’t bother asking me a question, because I won’t answer. At least not for a few minutes.

Staying away from multitabling is of course an individual thing - some people are just plain better at multitasking - in which case feel free to multitable. It’s one of the biggest advantages of online poker because of the potential for a much bigger hourly profit. Not for me though, I need my full attention at the one table I’ll be sitting at.

Anyways, after getting bad beat in two games, then donking myself out of the freezout, it all seemed to add up. Here comes the tilt again! I played in both a 6-handed .50/1 and 10-handed .50/1 NLHE, and in both games I played fine, but lost a big pot in one hand. One of them was where I put a smaller stack all in on the flop with JJ after a preflop raise, and he called with overcards only to hit them on the river. The other was me calling down a weak player’s second pair (5s) with 99 in the whole, only to see him hit his second hole card on the river for two pair. This one was especially painful because had I not been so passive, and played my normal aggressive game which I play when I am comfortable with myself, I would have pushed him out and taken the pot. I was obviously uncomfortable and leaning towards tilting.

I also played a small handful of SnGs today and yesterday, placing in absolutely none of the $10 buyins that I entered. I came to the conclusion that “These [insert favourite expletive here] donkeys are sucking out on me big time, so I’ll go on super tilt and play a bigger buyin, cause I’m pissed!”. Bad idea. Gladly by the time that bigger buyin SnG had filled up, I’d forgotten about my anger and was completely focused and rearin’ to go!

I decided that I’d had enough of the $10 sngs, and went up to test my skills at a $30. I had recently watched an absolutely hilarious video of an older man playing in some cash games, and decided to use the same program he used to film himself to film what I hoped would be my “breakout” sng. I actually filmed my game along with my commentary, but being in, shall we say an ‘altered’ state of mind at the time, I’ve decided it’s best to leave the audio out ;). Anyways, his extreme tilting and cursing at himself was so funny that it completely got rid of my tilt, and actually made my day. It gave me a new perspective as to how stupid it is to get mad at poker, especially when you’re the one playing poorly (see video). Thanks to Chris for posting that great video - cheers

I was hoping this $30 was going to be the one to break me out of my slump, and it sure was. I got a nice run of hands early, and despite losing a few big hands and pots later on, still managed to come back and aggressively steal back the chips that I needed to win.

The competition there is just as ‘donkeyish’ as that in the $10 games, with the biggest difference being that people are less willing to put their $30 on the line with an A7 all in preflop like they would at the $10s. Even so, the players are still pretty poor - I actually busted one of the players by getting him to put his whole 800 chip stack in the middle preflop with nothing but AQ suited against my KK with blinds still at 20/40. AQ is a great hand, but really nothing close to strong enough to push a 200 Big Blind stack in preflop for. I was glad to see that my hand actually held up, and I had a decent stack early. I’m not going to go through all the details of the SnG, as you can watch it if you feel up to the waiting out the 180 MB download time.

The win brought me back to my previous peak in profits for the sng challenge, and has given me some very elusive confidence that I’ve really needed lately.

Here are my now updated SnG statistics along with my bankroll progress:

Number of games: 30
Total bought in: $ 407
Total cashed out: $ 518
Total profit: $ 111
ROI: % 27.27
ITM: % 43.30

Bankroll: $ 1,441.18

Even with my SnG challenge giving me a nice profit, I’ve joined so many MTTs and satellites that I’m actually dropping in bankroll progress. I would love to be able to stick to SnGs and slowly build up the ‘roll, but my small amount of patience doesn’t allow me to stick to one game.

On a side note, I deposited into my Neteller account via my bank account, and have had pending funds for several days now. They should roll in any time soon, and I’ll be able to centralize all my little $25 and $100 mini-bankrolls into one on Neteller. This way I’ll be able to take advantage of any deposit bonuses and special tournaments at other sites aside from just Titan.

Also cheers to Fredrik for the supportive words ;). Thanks brother - I need it!