Getting Back on Track - Day 9

Instead of playing during the day, I decided to relax and have a few cocktails while I watched the Champions League final between Manchester United and Chelsea. It was a great match under tough wet conditions. I should have went to Quinn's since I was in GVR already, but decided to stay at the sports bar next to the sports book. I checked out the poker room after the match was over and there were two games of $4/$8 going which made me happy. looks like GVR is going to be my new stomping grounds. I didn't have enough time to sit and play since the match ended at 2:30 so I decided to go home and take a 50 minute nap before leaving to pick up wifey.

Feeling the itch to get some action in, I kissed Rebecca good night around 10 pm and headed off to GVR to get my fix. I was a bit tired since I am getting up at 6:30 each morning to take Rebecca to work so I didn't plan on playing long. one hour into the session I was stuck a benji and figured my plan went out the window. I go about things all wrong when it comes to playing poker. I play my longest sessions when stuck and my shortest sessions when I'm killing it. I plan on changing that but there is a part of me that hates losing so much that I'll sit there in a bad mood and curse my luck each time I get drawn out on or make a mistake. Fortunately this time after buying another 40 white I started to make some hands and my raises were starting to control the table the way I wanted them to. the calling stations called and the semi-loose/passive players got out of my way leaving me free to pick on certain players at the table. my target for the night was a loose/aggressive player who went on a tear just before I sat down. he got colored up after about an hour of me sitting down so he had three $100 stacks of red to go with about 100 in white. I was able to get my fair share of his stack before I left, at which point he was down to about $125. in the beginning, I let him run me over in some small pots. I had position on him (I was seated two to his left) so after he got comfortable pushing me out of pots I started playing back at him when the pots got big. he liked to bluff a lot as well, so on my medium strength hands I would check and call the river. One time he straight mucked and I didn't even need to show my hand which I loved because now all the other players at the table have no clue what I had (in this case AQ0 with a Q high flop and a K on the turn. the villain would play any two and he played back at me on the turn, so I checked the river to him and called him down figuring I had a great shot at being best, plus the pot was big and offering me more than enough to call him with second pair, top kicker.) wish I wasn't so tired, I would have stayed and played longer. my confidence is back and it doesn't matter if I get stuck early or get up early, I am getting used to the swings and they don't really affect my play as much. I need to get to the point where they don't affect me at all. I am hoping that the increased confidence and experience that will come with building a bankroll will ease the stress of the roller coaster rides involved with playing for a living. I am severely undercapitalized right now so that's why I am so cautious right now with how I am playing. I am not optimizing my profit potential but that also means less volatility in my bankroll. I am grinding it out playing conservatively, but once I get the knot up to $1,000 I will start to open up my play a bit more and experiment to see what I can improve upon in my game. My style right now is to play tight/aggressive when I can, but to play in limped pots from the back with suited connectors and big suited hands like Axs and Kxs. I am working on my observation skills so that I can use position much better down the road. I would like to start raising with almost any two cards on the button when it is folded around to me and practice outplaying the blinds should the call. my hand reading skills and bluff catching are getting better, but I have a long way to go before I can even be considered as a skilled player in these aspects of the game. To sum it up, the table tonight was very loose/passive for the most part. the game was much tigheter at Red Rock and GVR the first time. Goes to show how much time of day affects the game. these were players that to me were looking to blow off some steam and get some action in. I think I am going to stick to the day time crowd for now until I get a bit of cushion in my 'roll and then transition into playing nights where the variance will be higher but overall the profit potential will be much more. My buddy Chuck thinks I should grind my knot up to a G and then start to take on the no limit games. I agree with him that there is more money to be made there but I still need to sharpen my no limit skills. I may try to play on the strip at Hooters or Excalibur where the buy ins are minimal and the chance of running into truly skilled players is nearly non-existant. I know, I know those casinos aren't necessarily the hotbed of poker action. Never-the-less, money in your bankroll doesn't care where it came from since it all spends the same. I'll might have to suck it up for a while until my game is sharp at no limit before I can even attempt to tackle an ordinary $300 max buy in game. I feel like a pansy saying that, but I need to make sure I'm showing a profit and taking care of my bankroll so that I have some positive figures to show to the boss. after that, then I can start to venture out into the bold new world of las vegas poker.

Till tomorrow (when I should be playing at GVR around mid morning) here are tonight's figures:
Hours Played this session: 2.67
Take: $58
$ Per Hour: $21.72

Earn:
Month to Date: $41
Year to Date: $41
Hourly Rate Year to Date: $1.22
Total Bankroll: $658