So the big day was Saturday. Everything worked out perfectly, which - given the coordination involved in getting 60 people to do what we want, when we want it - is quite amazing. Lori was beautiful, I’m told I looked handsome (but given that it was my mom saying so, I’m taking it with a grain of salt) and the weather was perfect.

I’m not going to make a whole write-up of the entire party, suffice it to say I had a great time, and that I believe everyone there did, too. My mom has been raving ever since Saturday night (yes, she called me a few times since) about what wonderful friends I have, and I have to agree; I’m blessed with awesome friends. I hope I can be as good to them as they are to me.

Now. Poker.

Having just passed the biggest day of my life, and being very happy about how it turned out, I feel compelled to tell you that poker sucks. It sucks. Blows. Awful. Jesus Christ on a pogo-stick.

I’ve been running bad. Can you tell?

I’ve had downswings before, but this time, it’s eaten away almost two thirds of my bankroll. There’s very little I can do about it besides staying calm and playing my regular game, and keep trying to improve. But I know I can beat the games I’m playing and the players that have chewed up $3300 in the last couple of weeks do not have an edge on me. I know that I don’t always do the best job of adjusting to individual players (I sometimes check a decent hand on the river vs. a passive player, and I sometimes make a mistake in betting the same hand against an aggressive player, etc.), but these mistakes ought to be of the kind that gnaws off a bit of my winnings, not the kind that puts me running at -7BB/100. I’m not that bad. Honestly.

My confidence was shot to hell for awhile, but I’ve gotten some time away from the tables now and I’m starting to feel better about it again. I know I can beat these games, and even though I’ve lost some money, I’ve also gained some insight.

From one thing to another: Stars has very recently added heads-up tables, which is awesome! I’ve played almost only heads-up since they got there and I plan on keeping it up. I don’t know if it’s more or less profitable for me to play heads-up or 6-max since I don’t have enough of a sample yet, but it’s at least a lot of fun. It allows me to shape a read on a player and exploit it as best as I can, which adds a certain challenge to something that before was turning into mostly a grind. I don’t know how big of an edge I have on the people I’m playing, but so far I can at least notice some very serious mistakes that most of them make. I was told by one of them (after he won around 150BB off of me, so he perhaps felt justified) that I’m a horrible, horrible player. I play awfully.

He explained that I’m so “predictable” which surprised me a bit. “You raise on the button every time” he said, to justify his “predictable” comment. Do you see the problem with his comment? That makes me predictable, but not my cards. If you wonder why I raised everytime on the button, the reason is that he folded close to 35% of the time in the big blind, which makes raising with any-two immediately profitable if I can just play as well as he can after the flop - and on the button I will have position for the rest of the hand.

Still, he won a lot of money off of me. Most of it was bad luck on my behalf, where he had the best of it every time it was monster v. monster (flush vs. straight, hitting trips or backdoor straights vs. my overpairs, etc.) Still, I made mistakes, and I’ve learned from them. I’m going to get better at this, and I’m seriously considering making heads-up limit my main game. It’s simply fun. I’ll let you know how it works out.

/FP