Rollercoaster

When I last wrote I had just scraped by finishing a decent session to make up for a rough several days. Shortly after I had written that I found some juicy ones and managed to jump from my minimum bankroll up to nearly my normal withdrawal point. Ah, how nice to surpass a daily goal and in turn take a bad few days and make it nearly impossible to not reach my goal for the week. So comfortable, in fact, that I went on to bed that night knowing that I should only have to play about 3 hours over the weekend to hit what I wanted (and that included giving an extra hour in the event of a bad short spurt). Notice earlier that I did say “nearly impossible”.

I tend to defy the odds over and over again in everything. Generally this is a good thing, except in my case where I feel odds should be defied be the results good or bad. If you told me you’d hand me a hundred bucks for standing still 5 minutes… the odds are that I’ll be a bill richer in 5 minutes. In reality I’d probably take a step forward to spite you and then try to talk the money out of you anyway.

I was no different come Thursday. With utmost certainty of doing what I needed to get done, I awoke happy to go to an appointment with my CRO. Things did not go as expected there, and Sack was pissed off. So once I got home I was already tilting before I even logged on. As we all should know by now, when you’re tilting you either lose or get lucky-- and that day I was not lucky at all. So I played horribly and busted out of a few tourneys. No big deal really, I’d simply hop back on a cash table and make it all right back. But the cash tables bore me and take too long sometimes… so in my brilliant frustration I hopped on a higher stakes table than I normally do to speed things up.

I calmed myself down, convincing myself to keep cool and play well. I was ecstatic while watching before I bought in to see some truly horrible players. Three and four way pots being pushed big time with hands such as a pair of kings with a 6 kicker winning them. I knew all I needed was one hand and I’d be set. Problem was that I never got a hand to start with. Then I tried a bluffing one guy. I knew exactly what he had after the flop, I knew he had a better hand than me- but that his was weak. Turn brought a perfect scare card to his hand, so I pulled a check raise on him. If I took it then great, if not I knew his hand and would push him out on the river. River brought another great scare card (basically I knew he had top pair on the flop, then second best pair on the turn, the river brought a possible straight AND flush out there). I knew there was no way he could think he was good if I bet big. I did-- he called with the exact hand I knew he had from the beginning. They say you can bluff a good player out of a pot, but you rarely bluff a bad player out of one. This was that case since I watched him bust out quickly after our hand, he just couldn’t let go. I was hoping to catch something while he was there, but never did.

I managed to survive and build back up a little bit, but was back to where I had started when I last wrote- only my minimum bankroll. I was happy to work this weekend at the pool hall because Lord knows I needed the cash and the break. Especially considering weekends don’t tend to work out to well for me on the poker tables… except this one!

In maybe 5 or 6 hours of play from Friday until now, I managed a MTT cash (8th out of around 200), a couple of SNG wins and cashes, and my worst finish was third. In a flash I had reached my goal for the week at the last possible moment (maybe because I re-installed the older version of the software-- remember the one without the screwsack.exe update?) Or maybe, just maybe, I managed to make it because the odds were that I wouldn’t. After all, the last tournament that got me there had me sitting on a very short stack with 18 out of 20 left. Odds were that I’d be gone quick… wound up winning first.

Bulletproof (but don't bet on it),
Sack

sack@pokergreed.com