Season two is over and its time for a personal review of the past few months.
Overall, I"m happy with how things have gone. I"ve spent most of the season in the top ten of the national rankings, got a full set of medals, made 6 online final tables and had, if my memory serves me correctly, plenty of near misses, with a further ten penultimate table departures. This compares extremely favourably to season one when my only rankings points came in Razz, my highest placing in a hold"em event was thirtieth and I was, frankly, out of my depth.
The evidence is there that I"ve improved as a player and I think there are two key reasons for this. Firstly, my trip to Las Vegas last november was an eye opener. Unlike my previous visit, I didn"t win a cent playing in low buy-in freezeouts. However, I learnt a few key lessons. I played at Planet Hollywood four times and one tournament that sticks in my mind had fifty-five to sixty players with payouts down to eighth. From the opening three or four hands, the player to my left took command of the table, continually raising other players off pots. As the structure of the tournament was such that it wasn"t possible to sit and wait for premium hands, I decided to do something I hadn"t tried before which was to take him on at his own game. I made a point of entering pots by raising and reraising, sometimes with complete junk and built up a healthy chipstack. Ultimately, I was unsuccessful, but I got to the final table and departed just outside the money. The guy I mentioned from my opening table had recently moved to Las Vegas to try and make it as a professional and I discovered later that the field contained four other full time players. I returned home a few quid poorer but with a couple of additional weapons in my armoury.
The second big factor in my improvement as a player is the existence of APAT. Before Luton last year, my live experience was my first week in Vegas and one friday night rebuy at the Grosvenor in Great Yarmouth. The latter appeared to be a test of who had the deepest pockets rather than of poker skill so gave me an aversion to rebuy tournaments. In season two I"ve played four regional contests, been to Cardiff and Edinburgh as well as taking part in all four events at The Vic. Playing in freezouts with a sensible chipstack has helped me to develop some good habits which should serve me well in years to come.
My record in national events is awful. I"ve yet to make day two of a main event in four attempts and have actually gone out quicker with each successive try. The side events in London also didn"t work out at all, so I"ve yet to make my mark outside Norfolk. Maybe I"m allergic to leaving the county!
The biggest boost I"ve received from season two has indirectly come from the week in London. When I decided I was definitely making the trip to Edgware Road, I decided to try the side events. To prepare myself, from June onwards, I made a point of playing Omaha,Razz and Stud. What I hadn"t expected was that I discovered I could consistently make profits by playing cash stud. As a result, my playing focus has completely altered from being playing almost entirely holdem freezeout multi table tournaments to being primarily a cash player. At the moment, probably 90-95% of my playing time is spent playing stud. This has come about because I"ve taken stock of what I"m looking for from my poker playing and what I"m doing now fits better with my personal cicumstances. As I"ve mentioned previously, I work in a call centre. This obviously isn"t a well paid job which means that, taking my mortgage and other household bills into consideration, my poker has to be, at worst self-supporting. My plan from this point onwards is to try and grow my bankroll and move up a buy in level or two. I"m not saying that I"m giving up on tournament play, but I will not be spending my time making repeated attempts to win single life-changing amounts. Any tournaments I buy into will by paid for by profits made from cash tables.
I wait with baited breath to see what season three brings. I"m praying that the Great Yarmouth regionals are retained as there is a small nucleus of regulars there who seem to get on with each other and it will give me the opportunity to keep practising my live game. I"d love to see more non hold"em contests and will be very keen to assess the viability of making an attempt to top the overall rankings. This blog will continue for the forseeable future and I look forward to meeting everyone again in season three.
