Hi all, probably a very pointless post and you know it all already. Newbies may find benefit from it and if nothing else, it is quite cathartic just writing it.


Whilst I wait for some money to come through before making a decent deposit at a site of choice and as I want to enter the GUKPT, I decided to join BlueSQ in the meantime. Then I started playing freeroll MTTs on my old site and got hooked so I made a token deposit of £40 with a view to playing the $1 - $3 MTTs. I did, I lost and having been enticed by some $5+ MTTs, pretty quickly had just $26 left.

With no MTTs to play, I hopped into the $2 SNGs and quickly hit some horrendous beats and all on the river: a nut flush beaten by a full house, a straight beaten by a flush and top 2 pair beaten twice by a gutshot. Down to $16 I then hit form and my hands held - taking me up to $70. Since then, I've played a fair bit and finished in the money on far less than my usual 50%. And as a result, it is a constant fight to keep my BR ticking over at $65.

Now, I can whine about bad beats all day long. I can point out that on all of these occasions, the opponents were not only betting preflop with hands they really shouldn't but also continuing to hold onto them when they were well beaten - then striking lucky. Furthermore, I can complain how this "all in on a draw" mentality is typical of $2 stakes and that it's a minefield where the best play and best hands don't win as often as they should. Most of all, I can point out that my hands are no longer holding up and the beats are becoming the norm. In fact - just now. I hold J9. Flop is Q9J7. I have been called all in by the pre flop/post flop aggressor and his play stinks to high heaven. I call. Guy flips over KA. I am in great shape. The river is a 10.


However.....


If I (or anyone) is serious about their poker and going pro or what have you then this is what it's about. If it's variance then a few days is going to be nothing in the grand scheme of things when you can run bad for weeks and even months.

It is SOOOO tempting to go and jump into some $10 games - I can make the money back and more - but if I can't adhere to basic BR guidelines with this token deposit at a stop gap poker site then how can I be expected to stick to the guidelines with a more substantial deposit and when there is far more riding on it than just the cost of a few beers?

And if I let some $2 bad beats get to me then what chance at the bigger stakes on my site of choice?

I am also open to the fact that I may have taken my eye off the ball as I have been multi tabling. In tiled view, the tables are very small and not user friendly and I misread A4 for AA. Whenever I lost a tourney, my play immediately improved on the remaining table but I know that multi tabling is going to be essential to making the money so it's better to lose small than big whilst I adjust. Maybe it's easier in cash games than tourneys as there's no knockout format? And I am certain the tiled screens are better at other sites. the FTR vids at PokerStars look decent - and the same as full size screens. At ipoker, they go ultra tiny and ultra shitty.

And when I get bad beat, I so want to berate and check their sharkscope stats out. But where will that get me - apart from further on tilt? It's hard, I admit. But it is my aim not to whine to anyone about bad beats.

So yeah, big picture. If success is wanted at poker then this is the stuff that will make you or break you.


And for that reason, I am getting a perverse satisfaction out of sighing, then reloading another SNG, at the measly $2 level when even a solitary 3rd place finish in a $10 event will rejuvinate my BR.