Monday 29 November 2010
Ruuuuuussssssshhhhhh
Have been playing some rush poker whilst I consider my options for 2011. It's been fun so far ;)
Sunday 21 November 2010
So long stars, enjoy the ratholers
It is with mixed feelings that I will no longer be playing on pokerstars.
This is a direct result of their decision to split the games between 20-50bb and 40-100bb. They claim this is to give people choice, but they took away my choice which is to play with a mixture of full and short stackers.
I do have another choice though which is to play elsewhere and that is what I am going to do. I have given them way way more time than I should have to rectify the situation but now feel enough is enough.
The shallow tables now outweigh the normal tables significantly at mid stakes and the waitlists are ridiculously long. People don't want to start 40-100bb tables for whatever reason. The final straw was sitting down with a reg who was apparantly trying to start tables, he sat out after 1 hand (in which he won $40) and then just sat there for the next 20mins. Unsuprisingly nobody wants to sit down at a table with me plus a reg who is sitting out, and plenty of shallow tables filled up in the meantime because the one thing rats are good at is starting tables.
It is very similar to what happend with PT3 and HEM. I really didn't want to give up on PT3 but eventually it got to a point where I couldn't wait anymore and had to go with a product that was clearly better and was giving my opponents an edge on me. Once I eventually made the switch I didn't look back.
Really is a shame because stars still has a lot going for it (ie traffic, VIP program, customer support) but the simple fact is the games I like to play simply don't exist anymore.
I am not going to let misguided loyalty stop me from maximising my winrate anymore.
This is a direct result of their decision to split the games between 20-50bb and 40-100bb. They claim this is to give people choice, but they took away my choice which is to play with a mixture of full and short stackers.
I do have another choice though which is to play elsewhere and that is what I am going to do. I have given them way way more time than I should have to rectify the situation but now feel enough is enough.
The shallow tables now outweigh the normal tables significantly at mid stakes and the waitlists are ridiculously long. People don't want to start 40-100bb tables for whatever reason. The final straw was sitting down with a reg who was apparantly trying to start tables, he sat out after 1 hand (in which he won $40) and then just sat there for the next 20mins. Unsuprisingly nobody wants to sit down at a table with me plus a reg who is sitting out, and plenty of shallow tables filled up in the meantime because the one thing rats are good at is starting tables.
It is very similar to what happend with PT3 and HEM. I really didn't want to give up on PT3 but eventually it got to a point where I couldn't wait anymore and had to go with a product that was clearly better and was giving my opponents an edge on me. Once I eventually made the switch I didn't look back.
Really is a shame because stars still has a lot going for it (ie traffic, VIP program, customer support) but the simple fact is the games I like to play simply don't exist anymore.
I am not going to let misguided loyalty stop me from maximising my winrate anymore.
Saturday 13 November 2010
Tuesday 2 November 2010
Battling the Demons (not mine)
The following was posted by one of my students in our google group. I thought it was awesome and worth sharing.........
"I've been on a downswing and tilting lately, I actually took about 2 weeks off from seriously playing. I needed to step back and reevaluate some things. I did a lot of thinking and I believe I'm ready to come back.
Tilt is when I stop playing against my opponents and I start trying to play against either myself, or against variance. I realized that when I'm tilting all of the reads, the focus, and sound play go out the window. Sometimes I honestly forget the other players are even there. It isn't really about trying to beat my opponents anymore, I'm fighting a battle against variance or myself.
This is a waste of time. Variance is undefeated. I can't beat it. No matter what I do there's going to be suckouts, runs of bad cards, downswings etc. More importantly it's my friend. Without variance there wouldn't be poker.
Even worse is trying to play against myself. For me mainly it's beating myself up over mistakes and losing confidence in myself because of it. I looked at my mistakes as a total loss, instead of realizing there's a lot to gain from them. Also instead of being so critical of my own game, I need to turn that focus outwards and look at other people's. Find and exploit the mistakes they're making.
From now on whenever I feel like I'm no longer playing against my opponents I'm just going to close Full Tilt. Because that's the reason I log onto FT in the first place."
"I've been on a downswing and tilting lately, I actually took about 2 weeks off from seriously playing. I needed to step back and reevaluate some things. I did a lot of thinking and I believe I'm ready to come back.
Tilt is when I stop playing against my opponents and I start trying to play against either myself, or against variance. I realized that when I'm tilting all of the reads, the focus, and sound play go out the window. Sometimes I honestly forget the other players are even there. It isn't really about trying to beat my opponents anymore, I'm fighting a battle against variance or myself.
This is a waste of time. Variance is undefeated. I can't beat it. No matter what I do there's going to be suckouts, runs of bad cards, downswings etc. More importantly it's my friend. Without variance there wouldn't be poker.
Even worse is trying to play against myself. For me mainly it's beating myself up over mistakes and losing confidence in myself because of it. I looked at my mistakes as a total loss, instead of realizing there's a lot to gain from them. Also instead of being so critical of my own game, I need to turn that focus outwards and look at other people's. Find and exploit the mistakes they're making.
From now on whenever I feel like I'm no longer playing against my opponents I'm just going to close Full Tilt. Because that's the reason I log onto FT in the first place."
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