You only sing when you're winning

There's a chant sung at soccer grounds by opposition fans "You only sing when you're winning", and now the chant for this blog could easily become "you only post when you're winning". In my defense I played not a single hand between 5th feb and 15 march because work/life was getting me down and I knew I wouldn't play well. Since then I've gradually got back into things and now am back on my game.

You can see from the graph what a downswing looks like, most of which was in the last two weeks of getting back into practice. It just goes to show how important playing regularly is. The recent upswing is from two 3rd places yesterday and today. Frustrating not to win them but sometimes the cards refuse to cooperate !

Tournament of Champions

For the first time ever I'll be in Vegas during the WSOP this year. It's only one of the earlier weeks of the tournament and gives me a chance to play in one of these events. It's a tricky decision which one to play in as on the Friday I'll be jetlagged, Saturday I'll most likely be up and drinking at 7am when England play their first knockout game in the World Cup, Monday looks pretty good but I could be broke or broken by then !

45 Friday, June 25, 2010 12 Noon No-Limit Hold'em $1,500
47 Saturday, June 26, 2010 12 Noon No-LImit Hold'em $1,000
49 Monday, June 28, 2010 12 Noon No-Limit Hold'em $1,500
Does anyone know how long these donkaments last ? ie. 1-2 or even 3 days ? It would help me plan a bit better. Am considering selling a share or two but I'll warn you now I have very little live experience and could easily panic !
I played a few tournies last night, usual stuff, got QQ & AA cracked etc etc. I finished 9th in one of the 180s but really I could have done better. It was only towards the end of the night that I started to find the confidence to make the moves that should be standard such as restealing the stealer cutoffs raises with ATC. At least they came back though, back into the groove tonight… if they ever let me out of my cubicle !

Go cast your votes now http://www.wsop.com/TOC/ for the tournament of champs. My picks are thus

Phil Hellmuth - Doyle Brunson - Phil Ivey - Layne Flack - Chris Ferguson - Ted Forrest - Scotty Nguyen - Huck Seed - John Juanda - Barry Greenstein - Howard Lederer - Sam Farha - Humberto Brenes - Dan Harrington - Annette Obrestad - Donnacha O'Dea - Greg Raymer - David Benyamine - Rafe Furst - Phil Gordon

Better to be lucky than good

It is quite telling that a sequence of events IRL yesterday gave me an overwhelming urge to play last night and bring my "A" game. Actually I brought my "B" game but it's the thought that counts. I can't retell the IRL events for a while but it just further proves to me that I wouldn't have the drive or fortitude to play poker for a living so lets park that bus and leave it where it belongs. As I said "B" game was played and stats weren't great. Some well played hands, some bad, mostly good. I'm back in the zone where I know it's good to play so I'll ride it until the drive goes away again. If only I could learn to maintain it, but I don't think I'm built that way. I feel lucky, so I'll see you at the tables.

Not that I'm counting

But 16 weeks to go till Vegas heaven !

The way the last few weeks of no poker and lots of work have flown by I will be in the lazy river at the MGM grand before i know it. I'm still not smoking which makes over 2 months now and it's slowly getting easier I think. Today I feel like I might have enough energy to get back up and play again tonight. The rest was good, but I finally feel smart enough to play again now.

Tournament trickery tonight :)