Sit 'n' go ...

Greetings from France!

I have decided that the "significant accident" in my previous entry was perhaps not quite so significant after all. I could have bet less than going all in, something like $50 or so to deny the opponent the right odds to continue with, for instance, a straight draw, then going all in on the turn anyway ... but mostly I think this was just a "bad beat" and one should not dwell on them, irritating though they are.

I have been playing more $200NL at 6-max tables with small profits but nothing much else to report. I am wondering whether it's a good idea to change tables after every half-hour or so, unless I particuarly like the opponents, in an attempt to make it harder for them to "work out my style". There's certainly no shortage of 6-max tables. I've also been re-raising pre-flop a little bit more, in late position (on the button) with mostly good effects.

Late last night I played in two $16 sit 'n' go's, and won both of them ...

I've also played in a couple of those bigger 180-player (20-table) events, but I think single-table sit 'n' go's are much more suitable for my purposes. The variance is obviously going to be far lower. Those bigger events take about 3 - 4 hours and only 10% of the players are in the prize money (and the prize-money for 10th to 18th places is only twice the entry-fee anyway, so only 5% of the players actually win anything worth having). An ordinary sit 'n' go takes 30 to 70 minutes and 33% of the players are in the prize-money, so one's pattern of results will obviously be far more consistent for the hours put in. I said originally that I would play 100 of the $10 sit 'n' go's and then review the results, but I've been making steady profits from them and have moved up to the $16 games now, which are a little faster-moving as well (they are what's called "turbo tables" at PokerStars, so you get in a bit more play for your money, overall.)

In Paris now for the weekend, and will be home (and back at work!) early on Monday morning ...

Significant Accident (1)

I had my first really expensive accident in a game late last night, I was perhaps too tired to be playing anyway and don't really know whether I did anything too blonde. I have asked the "2 Plus 2" guys in this thread. Some of them clearly know what they're talking about although, as in other forums, the confident- and fluent-sounding ones by no means always agree! Still, it will be interesting to see whether they all tell me more or less the same thing. In that forum, they don't like you to give the result of the hand when requesting advice, so nobody can subconsciously be influenced by the outcome, so I didn't, but I can give it here: I went all in for the remainder of my $200 table-capital and was called by someone who had flopped a higher set than mine. He had pocket 9's, in other words, which I did not expect at all (though obviously I did ask myself, because that's the only possible hand that can beat mine at that point). I thought/hoped he had either AK or an overpair - maybe 10's or J's with which he had not himself originally raised, but had called a pre-flop raise, or even Aces which he had been slowplaying, as some people will). A setback indeed, though I am still a fraction ahead there overall ...

Another 800 hands

Greetings from Hydra!

Well, since my last update, thanks partly to the availability of the Hydranet, a WiFi network covering the residential area of the island, I have played between 6 and 7 hours at PokerStars 6-max tables, in the NLHE games with $1/$2 blinds (these are known as "$200NL" because the buy-in to sit at the table is $200). This represented 800 hands, give or take, and my bankroll is unchanged, more or less: I have paid in $1,820 ($340 to start and $1,480 later to bring it up to $2,000) and remain on just a fraction over $2,000.

I hope I am playing in the right games to get useful experience without paying a fortune for it. The standard of play is variable, but overall quite a lot better than I expected. I am told that some serious players sometimes play $200NL by way of "light relief" and that the standard is considerably higher than in an equivalently-staked live game; so I can't complain. I am playing at only one table, to try to watch the game fairly closely.