[Joymachine21]

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Those who read my thread about being in the poker god's dog house know that I took a string of around 9 beats and dumb mistakes to lose 4 of 5 buy ins and like 4 SnG's, 2 of those on the bubble, and all in 48 hours.

There is indeed variance... but you have to create your own.

I examined my thrashings carefully and found out a few things:

I had way too much faith in JJ, TT and 99... solution, downgrade them all to the same way I play 88.

I was having too much faith in flopping top pair *when* top pair was T or J and I had no overcards... solution, if I flop a bare top pair less than K's and get moved on, let it go and take their chips later.

Chasing open ended draws... they get beat 1/3 of the time even when you make them so when you combine the cost of chasing with the cost of losing with them, they're not profitable uneless you can limp along cheaply. Solution... cut those draws loose if faced with a raise for more than 20% of my stack as long as the only thing I have going for me is the draw.

Part 2, first day back...

With the above adjustments, I created my own variance. I went back into a 1400 person freeroll to test them and took 89th despite 2 hours of almost no play at all because the cards ran cold as ice. I was at one table for that last 2 hours, the table I finally busted at, and everyone was telling me that they'd never seen anyone hang in so long with so little. My surviva skills seem to be honed properly, and that boosted confidence.

So I tried the ring game again... and this time I looked bullet proof. After tripling my buy in, I remembered that you can't call off all your money if it's not on the table, so I called it a win and banked it. Next time I buy in it will be for only a single buy in, shielding those winnings from the variance.

I decided to test the SnG waters again before calling it a day. My adjustments had me folding JTs and similar hands PF or on the flop when I would have lost badly, so I wasn't giving chips back when I took them. I took the lead with around 6 people to go and never really looked back until we were HU.

This guy seemed good... in fact, it was like playing myself, which is always tough. We went back and forth 5 or 6 times and then when we were about even we ended up colliding.

I know what I said above about JT but that's for 10 handed... this is HU. It's not a killer hand but we were long into the point where we were trying to throw each other's reads off, so it was appropriate.

Apparently, he thought so too... we both turned over JT and watched the all in board turn out a chop. We laughed heartily on that one.

In the end, I used a little tactic to neutralize his positional advantage and deny him information when he was on the button and it slowly wore him down. The guy was good, there was no way to take him down in a blaze of glory because he could double up on you in a blink. In the end, I had to wear him down until I had him 10:1 in chips and then patiently wait for a real hand to take him out.

All in all, not a bad day! And it shows that yes, you can create your own luck.

Vorlin

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you re-learnt some basic poker skills ?