Two months of tat

Blimey, two months since my last proper post. It is certainly the case that good results prompt blog posts as I've had a properly uninspiring run of form of late.

Since my £15K and WSOP wins my MTT form has been rubbish. After having a good hard think about my style of play of late I've made an adjustment to my strategy. When I first started playing MTTs I was very much a 'by the book' player. This inevitably resulted in a relatively higher % of cashes, but often left me struggling for survival in the sharp end of tournaments.

I then made a concerted effort to play a more loose-aggressive game, and I certainly noticed that I would be more likely to accumulate chips and, crucially, I seemed to be making use of the chips when I got them, so I saw the odd early bust-out as a sacrifice worth making.

However, on a few occasions recently I've found myself quite high up the leaderboard at some stage, only to gift chips away through bad plays. I think I've allowed myself to get loose-aggressive at a level beyond my actual skill in the game at this point. I've also fallen into a trap of making crying calls because 'maybe he's bluffing'. This is a really amateur mistake.

Therefore, the adjustment I'm making is to be a bit less gung-ho and be more circumspect in MTTs - not wasting good positions when I get them.

Unfortunately, my poker bankroll has taken a battering recently. During my last big run of MTT woe, my cash game profits paid for the buy-ins, but the last couple of months I've made a loss here as well. It was bound to come eventually playing 6-max NL, but I hit my run of bad luck. From analysing my hands here I haven't played any worse than I did when I was making money, I've just not had the rub of the green in the big hands (which is what the NL cash bottom line comes down to).

One particularly bad session saw me get in a huge swingy battle with a Scandie who was a huge bluffer, and continually overbet the pot, but would hit whatever out he needed on the river (like keeping leading out on every street with 22 whilst I kept calling with my overpair only for him to hit his set on the river). A few other bad sessions have temporarily wiped out my online bankroll, and I can't replenish it at the moment because of having to cover extra rent and bills in my flat due to us being a flatmate down.

I've been keeping things ticking over by playing heads-up STTs on Pokerstars ($20 and $50 ones). After taking a little while to settle in, I'm getting the hang of these now and would feel confident of showing long term-profit. They are very intensive though - playing six hands a minute requires maximum concentration. I have found it strange how quickly you can get inside your opponent's way of thinking in a heads-up match - I've often found myself being able to confidently pick off bluffs after only playing someone for five or ten minutes. Patterns are much easier to detect in the hothouse atmosphere of a heads-up match as you're playing every hand against the same opponent.

I've not managed any more live events recently (apart from a Poker4Charity do, when I had my mind on other things) and seeing as Las Vegas is only six weeks away that's a bit crap. No live experience, no online form and no money to have a tourney blitz - not exactly great preparation :)