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11/26/2005: "Not Playing my 'A' game"

Think i need to post to get some frustration out. For the last 2.5 wks I've been playing like a complete donk. I've been unable to lay losing hands down, I've dropped more money than I care to think about in MTT's and tilted cash games. I'm simply playing bad poker.

The good news is I think I have identified why this is happening and hopefully how to solve it.

1. Arrogance and Impatience.

For a while I've been far too cocky. In any other game/sport I'd have had reason too (in a 6 week span i came 2nd in the crypto £15k for £2700. I came 4th out of 1473 in the Pokerstars Inagural Blogger Championships for a 24" Dell TFT. I won the $12k WPT package to the bahamas and I also won my first B&M tournie for £1050). Through all this new added confidence I've found myself not respecting other opponents and not waiting for good opportunites to shove my chips in purely because I am feeling Im too good to go out which is a huge NO NO.

2.Bad Bankroll Management

While I'm no danger of going broke any time soon I have been entered much higher buy-in tournaments in an attempt to play against quality opposition in prepration for my big dance in January. While I have been playing some good poker in these tournaments when I don't cash I notice it missing from my poker roll. This also seems to be affecting me more than it should.

3. Variance

Something which alas I cannot control. While I admit to having made some donkish moves I have been getting incredibly unlucky in coinflips, dominating hands and the flopped or turned nuts just have not been holding up for me. Heres an example where I whinge alot

Level 2 of the Stars $150 + 12 MTT.

Hero : 2250
Villain:1975

With blinds of 25/50 from MP2 I make it 200 to go with black aces Villain pushes from the cutoff. All folds and I call. Villain shows JJ flop KJK Turn 2 River 6 Im crippled in level 2 of a tournament.

Working through this I had what I would like to call a breakthrough last night.. Playing a Full tilt 30+3 sng we were in a very long bubble with 4 left I think it was 2-3 levels worth. I was the shortstack for a lot of it and managed to finished 3rd. I thought I was incredibly patient and played the Aggressive poker that I was doing during my hot streak.

After that I played the $6k Guaranteed and finished 5 out the money which again I was not dissapointed with if anyone cares again I got bounced with the best hand preflop.

Im watching my game closely now and believe I am getting back to where I was during that Hot streak.. slowly but surely.