It’s 4:00 AM. A young 19 year-old poker fanatic is in his basement bedroom trying to deal with insomnia, and is doing his frustration push-ups in between the 7 tournaments he keeps getting bad beat out of.

Call me crazy (I won’t argue), but this has been my lifestyle as of late. I used to get random spurts of insomnia, and I’m currently going through another one. I think it’s the lack of work that’s put me into bad sleeping patterns.

Anyways enough of my personal life you probably don’t want to hear about; on to my poker progress.

I recently bought the first two volumes of Harrington on Holdem, and am absolutely hooked. They’re great because they make you ask yourself simple questions that need to be asked. They’re almost philosophical in a poker sense. For example, like my blogging counterpart Fredrik noted, why do you bet? Well of course you are betting to get a desired action out of your opponent; either you want to somehow get him to push more of his chips in the middle, or you want him to muck his cards. Sounds simple enough, but you have to think about it and realize what the real reason you bet is. Why do you play poker? Well I play it because it’s fun, very challenging and I can make a decent amount of money of it aswell. Again, the questions sound simple enough, but their effect on the reader can be great for improving his or her perspective on the game.

I’ve only read the first quarter of the first volume, but “action Dan” (as Dan Harrington is apparently sarcastically nicknamed in reference to his rock-solid style) has already a great influence on me. The book brings you back to the basics; or rather the essential parts of poker. This was definitely something I needed, as I’ve recently been suffering from F.P.S. or fancy play syndrome. I overthink situations where I’m against weak players, when really I should be playing straight poker. I overthink strategy against these types of players, overestimating their perseptive abilities; the players I play against are mostly either suburban upper-middle class kids who are using their old man’s credit card to play poker. They’re not looking at what I raised with under the gun after not playing for 20 hands. They’re purely gambling, and I have to adjust my strategy accordingly to make money off of them.

On to the sit ‘n’ gos: I broke the rules!

I played around 6 or 7 SnGs last night, all of them busting out with bad beats, or tilting myself out of the game (Rule #5: DON’T play when you’re tired, hungry, tilting or distracted). I placed in only 2 of them, both I was at least a 3 to 1 chip shortstack and couldn’t beat my opponents who were showing me no respect. I’m still positive with my $35 results, but it isn’t looking pretty. I’m going to have to pick up my game, play every one like it’s my last. I haven’t been valuing each game and putting my all into it. I hate when I do this, but last night I was definitely in the “I’m negative for the night, gotta make it up! One more SnG!” mode, which is never a good thing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: You have to concentrate only on your current hand, and not worry about the last one, or the next one, or even the last tournament. Just concern yourself with the decisions at hand.

Here are my updated SnG results.

(Bankroll at $663.89, down from the ~$800 I had brought it up to)