HYHU > Cracklin' Rosie > HYHU

Well, my therapist says that the third week is a delicate time for making or breaking a habit, so it's crucial that I keep writing. "Even if it's only about poker," she says. As if "only" applies to poker. The fact that some of My Poker Heroes (ooh, I like that... look for that in a sidebar near you) are apparently reading makes me feel pretty cool though, and I've got a pile of half-written ideas that will eventually turn into posts. I can keep this up at least as long as my bankroll holds out. And just so you know, I'm planning to dig up quotes and show you all exactly what I've learned... you know who you are.

Of course, I'm not sure exactly how long that might be. I think I now know why 300BB is gospel. Because you see, if you question it... well, let's just say it's best not to question it. Why? Because if you... say, that's a really nice hand you've got there. Yep, look just like Paris and Nicky. Be a pity if something were to... happen to them, wouldn't it?

Not that I've gone down anything like 300, at least not yet, but I've been focusing on not letting the losing sessions affect my judgement, and mostly I've been successful. Maudie took The Big Slide once, she says, "but it was largely due to lack of discipline combined with stepping up - and staying up there longer than I should have." She gave me some good advice about stepping up every once in a while to "clear the cobwebs that can develop when you get dulled by the grind," which helped break my six session 300 hand losing streak mid-week. (Have I mentioned that I love PokerTracker recently? Best. Software. Ever.)/

SirFWALGMan also claims to have ridden The Big Slide down, and he claims the same reason as Maudie. Apparently he's not one for dilly-dallying around, though, so he went through his in one "Tilt-a-Whirl night" when he "could not bring it back and blew a $1200 bankroll." Uh. Wow. I'm officially enshrining SirFWALGMan in the list of My Poker Heroes (did I mention how much I like that?), and not only because I like Tilt-a-Whirls. He's been crushing 3/6 and transitioning well to 5/10, but the additional Karmic Energy provided by my blog link can't hurt. Anyway, it's only fitting that he be added to the list second, as he was my second comment. You know what they say about the second guy to sign a girl's freshman yearbook? So now I think you're morally obligated to tell me what the letters stand for, FWALG. Doesn't that seem only fair?

In the Yet-Another-Busted-Cherry Department, I played my first heads-up SnG tonight. Mostly I've stayed away from these, partially because I don't really consider myself at my best heads-up (at the poker table, at least) and partially because they seem like so much more of a coinflip than a single table game. And mostly, I don't think my impression has been changed. Let's just say the better player didn't win.

I've been kind of ashamed to mention this, but PokerStars isn't the only site I play at. Y'see, I also have an account with JetSetPoker. I know, I know, the software is The Cheesiest, but the games are softer than Charmin. I really don't know if it's the cartoon interface or not, but I have this impression that every player on there is 13 years old and playing with daddy's money. I think I talked about how I ended up at PokerStars in my second post (back when I was a naive, innocent poker slut), but about a month ago I found myself with $50 left in my pocket when my paycheck was gone. I was going to deposit it at PokerStars so I could afford to enter the Blogger Tournament last month, but... well, I got a little star-struck looking at the list of players who had already registered and I chickened out. So anyway, I had this money burning a whole in my pocket, and along comes a 50% deposit bonus from JetSet. Well, I knew the games were soft at JetSet, and I'd been reading all these glowing accounts of bonus whoring, and somehow the money was there before I'd even read the fine print.

The fine print wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it did seem like it was going to take a long long time to work my bonus off at the levels I play. There really aren't enough players there for micro-limit cash games, and anyway the Go!Points (yes, that's really what they're called, exclamation point and all) I'd earn wouldn't come nearly fast enough. However, after playing around with Excel for a couple hours, I determined that the last of my bonus would be credited just before I went broke if I could average an 80% ROI on the 5+.50 tournaments and SnGs. I felt like I could probably do that, and I bought myself some insurance by sitting down for my first tournament there and beating off 86 of the 87 other players for a $47 cash-out.

Why didn't I mention this before? I've been bragging about all my other wins. But, well, this is JetSet we're talking about. I don't feel like that win really counted, because the play was so bad, and I was so lucky. Anyway, I didn't take notes, counting on the hand history to nudge my memory later. Imagine how stupid I felt when the menu item called Hand History told me it was not yet enabled. Since then, I've played a lot of tournaments that I didn't write about because I didn't have a history. In total I've played 24 tournaments there, including multis, SnGs, bounty tournaments... and now, one heads-up.

The thing is, despite the fact that I really feel like I'm better than the vast bulk of those players, I'm down from my post-first-tournament peak of 91.75 to 78.63 remaining. Of course, that's still a 130% ROI, but it feels like I'm slipping. I left my friends at the bar kind of early tonight because I was feeling yucky and I could hear the JetSet SnG's calling to me, so I played one and took first pretty easily. I quickly climbed back in but lost a couple of small pots early and had to tighten up quite a bit against the horde of calling stations arrayed against me. About midway through the fourth level, I raised 3xBB in the cut-off with KTs and got called by the button and the big blind. The flop came K72 with three suits and the blind checked to me. I bet the pot, figuring I needed to take this one down to pad my stack a bit. The button tanked for a bit before calling, and I put him on a middle pair or a Kx of some kind. The blind folded and before the trey of spades even hit the digital felt I realized I'd made a big mistake. I looked at my stack, looked at his stack, looked at the size of the pot... and pushed my chips. When he called my flop bet, I'd become pot committed without even realizing it.

I'm sure you realize that you wouldn't be reading about this hand if he hadn't had a K3. Oh The Humanity.

I guess I tilted a little bit after that. The SnGs fill up slowly if at all on JetSet. Again, no players, no history, cartoon interface - I can't tell you how not-worth-it JetSet is, although I'd love it if you'd use my name if you insist on signing up ;-). I mentioned before that I consider the heads-up SnGs little better than flipping a coin for five bucks, but I figured on JetSet I'd have an edge. And sadly enough, I was right.

For the first few levels, Bill and I had a friendly little game of poker, see-sawing more than Bobby and Cindy. When the blinds hit 50/100 I started to push a little bit, and I was slowly gaining an edge on him in play if not in chips. When the blinds hit 75/150, I was definitely in control of the game although I was down about T200. He called from the SB and I raised to T300 from the button with QJs. He thought for a few seconds and called. The flop came Q98 with two diamonds and he checked, which looked pretty good for me. I couldn't put him on a bigger Q than me, so I bet T450 to knock him off that ugly flush draw. Bill thought a while again, then he called. Again.

That kind of worried me. I don't like it when people call my bets. It makes me think they're up to something. What I suspected Bill was up to was something like A8 (good) or 98 (not so good). When a diamond hit the turn and he checked, I was in trouble. A small bet would either earn me a call or a re-raise all in. A check would just induce him to make a bet I couldn't afford to call on the river. That really only left one option. I pushed my chips.

I'm sure you realize that you wouldn't be reading about this hand if he hadn't had the 74(!) of diamonds. Oh The Humanity.

Like I said, this just reinforces the coinflip hypothesis I made earlier. I don't think the structure of a heads-up no-limit tournament favors the better player as much as a single- or multi-player structure. I'm pretty certain I get more out of watching the other players for an hour or two than they get out of watching me. And when it gets down to heads-up, sooner or later you'll have to deal with the Eternal 50/50 Proposition: either he's got it or he don't.

Wow. This is a big one. Am I getting old if two hours of typing makes my fingers ache? Guess I'd better go get some sleep. Right after a quick session at PokerStars, I promise.