I haven't written for awhile due to the fact I haven't made any big final tables. I'm putting this down to a lack of volume combined with my recent switch from smaller fields to huge ones (1,000 - 6,000). Despite this I've been running deep eg. making the last 150 2 or 3 times in the Stars $3 rebuy. In fact I seem to be runnning deep a lot which is encouraging but at the same time it's making me wonder why I mange to convert these deep runs to good finishes so rarely... I think a good example of what I may be doing wrong came the other day in a 1000+ man $11 tourney on Full Tilt that I busted in 50th:
It folded round to the SB whilst I was in the BB and he raised to 3x the BB, I had A4s and decided to push over the top, he insta called with JJ, no help for me and I busted.
Up to this point I had been picking great spots for re-steals and chipping up substantially through them but at this point I got carried away and failed to analyze the situation... This player had just moved to the table so straight away I should give him credit as I have no reads on him, worse than that though I realised afterwards that I had played with him on another table recently and had forgotten that he was in fact a very tight player, woops!
So what was this mistake that I feel is repeatedly my downfall, I play decent aggressive poker in the mid-late stages which takes me deep with a good stack and then in one foolish moment/hand the confidence I have gained gets the better of me and I make a move (or 2/3) without fully considering the factors around the situation resulting in the worst kind of bust out - when you know its your fault!
Anyways the moral is that I must maintain dicipline and focus as the tournament progresses and remember to treat every hand as thoug it could be my last (the curse of NLHE). This of course is hard when you play lots of big MTT's and are just a recreational player, but is quite simply the only way you're going to go from deep runs to FT's... nuf said :)
Enough rambling about my shorcomings then, what else have I been up to? (for the brave souls who are still reading lol). Poker wise I started a facebook group called Newcastle Low Rollers which has nearly 30 members now. It's mostly m8's who have a vague interest in poker but a few who regularly play live, so we're havin a few home games, trips to casinos, pub games etc. If anyone readin wants to join just add me on facebook (will_poulsen@hotmail.com). We had a trip to the casino the other night which was fun until bot me and my m8 got busted both all-in preflop with KK (seperate hands). His was v.harsh - all-in preflop for 70quid in a 0.25/0.50 game lol! Wait for it... against A7s! and trip 7's hit on the river. The other player had no reason to believe he could make him fold as my m8 hadn't been laying anything down, he had better reasoning than that though! I hit a Royal Flush with this hand the other night! LMAO!
In other non-poker related news, I'm in Manchester atm, hav had a gr8 wknd visiting my Australian family who are over. Been to a posh Indian resteraaunt, a play, markets and generally enjoyed their company immensly :D Meanwhile I've been reading Sklansky's 'The Theory of Poker', I'm about 1/3 of the way through and am enjoying it so far. Despite it's constant references to Limit poker and 7-card Stud, Razz etc. it's great to read where the origonal concepts of EV came from and things like 'The Fundamental Theorem of Poker':
"Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose."
When I first read this awhile ago I thought wow so what... But when you see it in the context of this book it's the basis upon which all of his other theories/advice sits so although it sounds simplistic by itself when it's used within another theory you can see it's importance. It's like 2+2=4 in maths on it's own someone tells you and you go "Wow, you're clever" but without it more complex sums and equations would not work. As well as this I've started watching training videos from Cardrunners etc. as I now have access to them through a torrent site listed in my links :) Lovin that as I can't afford the subscriptions to the sites atm. Got to go catch my train back to Newcastle now, playin 2moro nite at the Hussar in Heaton hope to see some of you there...
