Small Stakes

I have decided tonight that £10 STTs are to high for me to play. To much money. I am not a gambler and never will be. I not responding to any bad beats in writing this it has just dawned on me how much I used to enjoy playing the $1 STTs on Blue Square.

When I have some spare time I want to be enjoying it playing poker, not feeling pressured and doing my head in over bad beats or a run of bad luck. But the competitive streak in me wants to win, I don't bloody care if it is a $1 STT, I want to win it.

LESS POKER, MORE ENJOYMENT!

Swallowing Pen Lids!!!!!!

Had a week off poker but couldn't last until 2006 (Boo, rubbish) so tentatively sat down and played with the last £30 that was left in my Littlewoods account today. Decided just to play £5 STTs and was really nervous. First hand dealt AK suited, raised to 60, BB goes all in and I was unable to fold and was out as he showed AA.

But it improved, lots of 2nd places, managed to win a £3 STT though and made a bit at low stake Omaha PL (Great game to play low stakes but you must be patient) and ended up with £75.

But the money doesn't really matter, what was vital was that I enjoyed it. Took some bad beats and inflicted a few but I was not playing scared and was so shocked by someones bad play (He called an all-in for 500 chips with J3 with a board of AKQ96) that I swallowed a bit of my pen lid that I had bitten off!!!!!!

Betfair poker stays deleted (It's all psychological) but the weeks break has done me good.

Get A Blog

Just thought I'd add that I feel much better now I've written that down.
Great therapy, doesn't bother me if no one ever reads this but I was stewing all yesterday over my poker the previous night. Feel better now.

SO IF YOU PLAY POKER, GET A BLOG.

Disaster

Well I started this blog having had a bad time of it recently but in 18 months of playing on-line poker I have NEVER experienced an evening like Tuesday 20th of December.

N.B : I know what I said in my introduction about bad beats but fuck it, it's good therapy.

My record this evening was...

Played 19 £10/$20 STTs, Won 1, 3rd 1, Unplaced 17.

Now if I was drunk or playing terrible or on tilt then I could handle this BUT during 90% of these games I got my chips into the middle in front and was beaten. And of course these beats happened at Level 4/5 which are critical times in STTs.

AK being beaten by KQ, AJ being beaten by A7, 55 being beaten by J5, KJ being beaten J2, AQ being beaten by Q8, AA being beaten by TT and my personal favourite KK being beaten by Q9 when I went all in after a flop of KQT (he made runner, runner flush).

Apologies about listing bad beats, I'd promised I'd never do it but it was just astonishing.
So what did I do? I withdrew £100 out of Betfair (I only lost profits on Tuesday), uninstalled the software and e-mailed Betfair asking to be banned from the forums.

I know I'm good enough to play the £10 STTs, the level is only slightly better than £1 IMO and I know I will be back but for the next few months I will avoid Betfair and try and get some confidence back on Blue Square. If I had been playing cash and above my bankroll it would have been awful, I think after this experience I will NEVER EVER play for more than a tenner unless it is live, no point!

But also I have been playing far too often recently and neglecting other parts of my life. Poker is a great game but I just felt it was taking my life over to much. Maybe the bad beats were a sign or omen to stop playing so much.

I am now poker free for the rest of 2005 and will be back on Blue Square in the New Year, look out for DoobDude being chimped as per usual on the $10 STTs.

Happy Christmas

Introduction

Hello, yes it is another one of those boring poker blogs.
I will try to keep it interesting and not send you to sleep with bad beats all the time but the idea of this blog is a place to record my successes and frustrations. Family and friends just don't really understand poker and generally don't care so I have to tell someone.