Losing Run 0 - Andrew 4200

One of the most common refrains from poker players is that "I'm due a win". They've had a run of bad luck and are convinced that "it will even itself out soon". The longer the losing run goes on, the more it affects their play - the losing run itself becomes the focus of the player's attention.

Regular readers will know I've had a rather impressive sequence of non-cashes in tournaments - about 40 at the last count. One thing about it is that I haven't let it get to me at all, which has surprised even me. Not winning in tournaments is due to one of two things, bad luck or bad play. There have been many occasions during this run where I've been eliminated by an opponent getting lucky. This I don't mind as I'm more than capable of seeing the big picture - if I play well and my opponents play badly I'll win in the long run.

There have also been tournaments where I've gone out through playing a hand badly. This is more annoying, but I've been able to turn this to my advantage by properly examining how and why I made the mistakes in order to improve my game. I have identified one particular trait of mine (going all-in on a flush or straight draw on the flop against an opponent I know won't fold) which I'm now striving to eliminate.

All losing runs must end eventually, and I managed to make the cash in Saturday's £15K Guaranteed on Crypto. By 'make the cash' I actually mean 'totally destroyed everyone to win £4200'.

It was a dream tournament. I'll do a proper analysis of important hands in another post but a quick glance reveals the amazing stat that I got dealt a hand of a pair bigger than 66, or Ace bigger than AJ, on 30 occasions, and won every single time. Talk about big hands holding up! Admittedly, the majority of these hands won without a showdown, but not losing a big hand was crucial.

I amassed a huge stack of chips (I went to the final table with half the chips in play) which allowed me to concentrate purely on winning. I can honestly say I didn't think of the money until the tournament was over - my overwhelmingly commanding position meant that I would have considered anything other than a win as a failure, so concentrated purely on that.

So, we're still in February, and yet I can already cross off one of my goals for the year.