My first UB blog - A change in my life.
Posted: 2007-09-05 14:03:20By: Debo34
All poker players need time away from the game and I am no exception. Sometimes, I like to step away for a week or two, spend time with family, and do anything besides play poker. With the exception of a tournament or two, I recently took close to 20 full days off at the beginning of August to move. I am now back in the town I grew up in and close to my 3 sisters, my dad, and a lot of old friends. Sometimes in poker, as in life, change is good. A new surrounding can really give you a fresh perspective on a lot of things and I feel more energized than I have been in a long time.
Since my move, I've gotten back to doing some things I had gotten away from, mainly eating better and exercise. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the weather here is so much better compared to the rainy coast I have been at for 12 years. I just bought the family new mountain bikes and we have been riding almost every day. It's amazing that little things like this can affect everything about you, including your poker play. I can already see improvements in my poker concentration and my frustration level is way down. As a result, the end product is benefiting from something as simple as a mountain bike.
So after getting settled in, it was back to work. I can't remember the last time I was this excited to play poker. That excitement was enough to make me run down and buy a new monitor. After seeing the new 22" Samsung that my friend Mike got during the WSOP, I figured my two existing 20 inch monitors weren't doing the job. I hope I can continue to afford this new excitement, but at least I was ready now.
This new monitor does have somewhat of a drawback, however. Because it allows me to put up 6 games on one screen without overlap, I started to play too many.
As much as I love to play 6 or more games at once, I feel comfortable with 4 or 5. Anymore than that and I know I make far too many mistakes.
I played 7 straight days without a day off. For me, this is a lot. I rarely go a week without at least a day off, but I was hungry to play and things were going well. Some ups and downs, some good play, and some mistakes, but for the most part I was happy with how I was doing.
During one little stretch, I managed to final table the 2pm $100+ 9 in 3 consecutive days, finishing 2nd, 4th and 3rd. Although they were decent finishes, as we all know 1st is where it's at. I was pretty disappointed in 2 of those 3 tournaments that I was unable to close out and win them. I was also able to luck out in one of the $100 rebuys for Aruba, sucking out twice at the final table (sorry anniesmiles) to get heads up with ole school. He had close to a 2-1 chip lead and offered me a $3500 deal to go away. As this was a very generous deal, I would have been a fool to not take the gift as he is a very good player and his style usually gives me fits. Besides, Aruba wouldn't be the same without him and I already have a seat.
To end my recap of my recent tournaments, my performance in the Sunday 200k tournament is still on my mind. I had moments of good play and moments of awful play, including, of course, my final hand. I caught some cards and some breaks and got a nice stack early. At one point I had close to 30k in chips and everything was going smoothly. From there it was a slow death. I can't remember winning a single hand in the last hour and a half (I'm sure I did, but nothing significant). I slowly bled off blind after blind. I remained patient, only playing very few hands, but starting to get frustrated. With 98 players left and paying 90 spots, I picked up 10's in the cutoff. I made a standard raise and the bb shoved all his chips in. Tough spot here as I had around 19k and he had 18k. Did he think I was stealing from late position? Did he have a hand? He hadn't gotten out of line at all in the time we played. I decided to fold despite this being the best hand I had in over an hour. Frustration was now really setting in. I was down to around 8 bb's when I was able to shove with 66 in late position and pick up the blinds and antes. A few orbits passed and I was sitting around 18k in chips with the blinds at 1k/2k when I finally got dealt a hand of AQ suited in the bb. In hindsight I could not have played this hand any worse. UTG opened for 6k, everyone else folds to me, and I………shove??????? What am I thinking? In my opinion there are 2 ways to play this hand and I did neither. One would be to fold. After all, this is a fairly tight player who is raising 6k of his 35k in first position. I doubt he's doing it with AJ which is about all I am ahead of here. The other option would be a stop and go. I could call, leaving myself with around 14k, and if I hit an A, Q, or any draw, I would lead out for all my chips. In hindsight I like a fold here best. Maybe even a call, but not a push. So I push like an idiot, he calls with KK, and its gg…out in 68th.
I try to learn as much as possible about this game, especially evaluating what I do wrong. My lesson here is to think before I act. Try to reason through the hand rather than letting frustration get the best of me and just shoving my chips in. Had I taken a few seconds to think, I might have survived this hand with a few chips left and lived to play on. Who knows what happens from there. Oh well, all part of learning. A few days off and I'll be back at it again.
Debo
