Thursday, November 29, 2007

I have had some interesting wakeup calls recently regarding my skill level as of late - my game has dried up, and I am pretty much just treading water in most games - I'd probably lose less money playing blackjack, but that's not the point of the post.

Years ago, as a kid, I played Chess - there are many similarities, and of course, many folks enjoy both games and can draw many parallels but one comes specifically to my mind. To become a master, you have to devote an obscene amount of time to study - and even a casual study will quickly reveal how much you still have to learn.

As a kid I showed an aptitude for the basics of chess - I mostly didn't put important pieces in front of anything that could take it and that was that - learned a bit about how to fork pieces, but never memorize openings, never looked for forced mates - (my checkmate was to get down to a rook/queen advantage of picking their pieces off and then forcing the K into the wall - the first checkmate ever inflicted on me) - I would trade liberally, and the idea of even having one pawn advantage seemed beyond insignificant to me.

Looking now at the Chess tools out there for improving your game, including online videos/sites/etc, I can safely say I see major deficencies in my game and can work accordingly - but with Poker I am still struggling to get to that point. I suspect the reason is because there IS a luck factor in poker that is easy to blame for every call by a joker with 22 - (I've lost 4 all-in's with overcards this week) - but it bothers me that I feel I've reached a learning plateau in poker at a time when others are surpassing me by leaps and bounds -

makes me yearn for chess again - another overwhelming hobby to take me from my true love, another terrible mistress, the songwriting.

I so need a girlfriend to tell me to drop all this crap - LOL - damn this fear of rejection.

RB

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

I have a filter list set up for PL/Limit games on Full Tilt - the pickings are extremely bad - most games are taking 20 min. to get going - but when they do they're like robbing a corpse - forgot how fun first place is. - so desperate I'm playing a 6 handed turbo 6 max game on Pokerstars -

I don't know why I hate NL so much now - maybe it's just because the total sum of virtually all tournament experience right now has been NL, and I was pretty good at limit before the NL boom - man, I wonder if I could even FIND a limit tourney in Vegas outside the WSOP right now. Bellagio converted to a NL format years ago.

It's been said by others (Felicia, among others) that a migration to other games will be what keeps poker's momentum going. The joy of NL pushes and watching the bluff analysis only goes so far - great for TV, but I think a lot of folks like me are tired of the dice rolling. I understand there is a definate skill factor the pros have that puts them to the top of Internet fields again and again, but for most of us it's joe jerkoff with a porno on half the screen, slightly below chip stack, calling all in's with 33 cause he thinks he might be a 52/48 fav. while playing 6 tournaments.

Maybe I just am bored of the push/bet/calculate crap. Maybe it's because you know with Limit you're guaranteed playing more hands whereas in NL you have to adjust to the fact your first hand first round may be your last - (possible in PL too, but I digress - going back to my 33 example, a stack is much more likely to call an all in praying for a coinflip then calling a raise with 33 and 3 more rounds of action, it seems.

it's just something with me, and whether or not I like it, it does appear to be a profitable run again.

but not at a $3.25 turbo table :)

RB

my self esteem has mandated a few changes -

1. - Back to 5.50 SNG's - and not NL - I want Limit/PL - one thing I noticed about NL is it makes players at the LL a lot more prone to shrugging and taking a coin flip with 33 - that's not a major PL/Limit play though they will often see a flop and let it go if the set isn't there. Maybe I'm just ready for a change.

2. - I'm starting my hair-loss regime again - I'm too ugly to be going bald - :)

3. - I dragged out the old Chessmaster 10 and installed it - won 1 of 3 and would have won 2 but my 10 min. time clock caught me off guard - screw that - next time I'll change the time to 20 min - :)

4. - I may buy a pro tools rig - if you don't know what that is, don't panic - but if you've heard anything recorded on the radio in the last 5 years, I'd bet almost even money it was done with Pro Tools recording gear - less on this as it's 50/50

5. - more rock, less sleep.

RB