Old ghosts returning

It appears that I am more of a creature of habit than I can control. In the past I have taken a small stake or small tourney cash, run it up to just under or just over a thousand dollars and then something happens, and I can not hold on to that bankroll as it slides through my fingers like a handfull of sand. The harder I grab at it the faster it slips through with only the sound of crushed aspirations as it slides into the abyss of failed dreams.

Sound a bit dramatic, yes it is, but to make a point. The micro grinders like me, the ones that are reading and studying and talking and blogging and posting are not really doing this for fun. We are doing it to beat the game; to prepare like a chess player to become a grand master. Until we can make a real go of it, it is not about the money but about the decisions (yet somehow all those Sklansky dollars ain't paying for this education).

Symptoms of the inevitable slide are:
1) Having a great run - CHECK
I took $25 from a free tourney entry win to $765, cashed out $250 to pay back my staker (from a previous $250 stake that I very nearly went broke on). At my high the remaining $475 was at $575 (mid session)

2) Beginning to play too much - CHECK
on a heater the game pulls you in. My goal of reaching a $2,000 bankroll seems like it will be within reach any minute now, the game gets easy, idiots try to bluff you off the second nuts and life is good

3) Since I am running this well here, at a higher limit I can.... - CHECK
If I am running this well at $1, I can step up to $2 and buy in short and ... yes I shamefully admit I made a return to $2 this week, with a $60 short stack buy in (but just one buy in was all I was going to risk) took a cooler and re bought... I ended this session, up 20 cents. When I doubled up the second buy in, I somehow came to my senses and left a table full of better players, or at least players with a much larger bankroll (and with aggressive poker being good poker, sometimes those two things are not as different as I would like to think)

4) Bad sessions increase in their depth - CHECK
I recovered magically from several sessions that cut my bankroll in half, or WORSE this week

5) Then the bad sessions BUT the recovery doesn't happen and you have two big bad sessions in a row - CHECK
I put back to back sessions together that ran me from $575 down to $98 - literally turning my baby bankroll into liquid shit. The first of these session had NO SHARPS in it at all. I played after coming home late just off the plane from a 19 hour day and lost more than $200 (it is hard to type that sentence and not erase it btw)

6) Playing sessions that are likely to be down - CHECK
(from the above point)

Doctor check me into the hospital, it was all coming to reality too quickly, and I slipped again. In the second large down session I was calling near pot bets with third pair sure he was bluffing, and was never right (funny how when I am on my game, I am sometimes right, when I am not, I am never right). Yes it is absolutely correct that my hands were just not holding up, my continuation bets were always getting called, I wasn't finding tables with the maniacs and LAGs that have built my bankroll up, but all of these things are symptoms of poor play too.

For example if your continuation bets are "always getting called" guess what, your competition has adapted to you, but you haven't adapted to you. Through playing too much and running poorly from some legitimate nasty river cards, I almost go into auto pilot. This is where I begin to play the game mechanically, I am concentrating and trying to play correct poker (notice I did not say Good poker) so I revert to a very safe, very predictable strategy and almost could sleep while doing it.

Anyway to wake myself up I went to a 25 cent table and played as an absolute LAG. This may look like tilt but absolutely was not. It was intentionally having a session where I intended to shake up my game (not the table, sorry badass23 but it was not about you at all). I opened every pot for the standard 8x blind raise and showed every garbage hand that was not called. Every time I caught a piece I over bet it, I would bet pre flop whatever the guy next to me had left. All of this when I thought I had the best hand or would not get a call. I finished that session at $57 from the $25 buy in... hmmm and I felt mentally alert again. I shook off the autopilot.

Then I returned to the game I have been doing well at. I bought into a $1 table for $20 and through good short stack poker I closed the table at $88 when I felt tired.

Hopefully my math is all correct but my baby bankroll currently sits (stake free) at $209.35 after those small recovery sessions. Unfortunately all it will take is solid good poker play, but on a bad run to eliminate this, but I can't worry about that. All I can do is return to setting as many things in my favour as possible. For example I virtually never win in early AM Sat and Sun sessions... and I am blogging rather than playing right now.

--Felter