Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Should I stay or should I go now

Again, this was going to be a weekend that I was really excited about. I was wifeless and kidless for a couple of days. I didn't play very much on Friday but did win about $130 so things started of good... So here comes Saturday.. the plan.... Poker. and lots of it.. Unfortunately, right from the beginning, things didn't go right.. other than blind steals.. I didn't win a hand for 44 straight hands... no big losses there.. I pushed a little with mid pocket pairs....
I also won't go into details into what I lost with... just that I had 25 hands of where I lost 4BB or more vs vs 27 wins of over 4 BB.. so where did all the losses go.... All those mid hands where you get the cards but miss the flop and over a period of 839 hands added up to a $500 loss... add to that another $250 from Poker World which isn't traced by Poker Tracker and that makes for a terrible Saturday.. At one point, I was nearly $1000 down.. which begs the question.. When should you quit vs when should keep playing. Stop losses were mentioned in a couple of messages I read yesterday and here is my thoughts:

I typically set a stop loss at 2.67 buyins which is about $400. The thing about it is that is not an automatic stop... It is more or less a trigger to re-evaluate the situation... I then ask myself these four questions:

1) Am i playing badly?
2) Am I tilting at all?
3) What is the table like? (it is a bad table)
4) Am I tired?

If I answer yes to two or more of them, then I quit. Unfortuantely, Saturday, when I got to that point, I convinced myself that everything was still fine. I am a huge advocate of if the table conditions are good, then you need to keep playing if the other conditions don't overrule them. The bad thing is that I had to judge table conditions based on experience (as opposed to poker tracer) since I was playing at UB and Poker Room that doesn't work with Poker Ace.

What are good table conditions... To me, a good table condition is where you have some money donaters.. If the table has a VPIP of over 21 and a lot of preflop rasing... and add to that that the overall bb/100 is negative.. I'm in... It's ok if there are some tight aggressives at the table.. I just need to watch my step against those people.

On the bright side, I played 8 minutes yesterday and won $101.50.. A flopped flush and set with people raising me did the trick. My only goal was to win $20 that I gave away on my last hand on Sunday... So I made that with the Flush; but when I thought I turned off the auto post to the blinds, I didn't and I got 33 in the BB with one raiser.. I called to see if I hit the set and fortunately, I did... He continued to bet into me... I won the pot and left... Hit and Run..

A couple more days of 5/10 and then I will set a plan/goal for September. For sure, I will probably be playing less due to football and prime time shows. Mrs Wonka loves watching a few shows and it something that we do together. We started with Prison Break last night... If you didn't get a chance to catch it, I highly reccomend it... It was awesome!!! Looks great.. The basic premise is that a brother is on death row and the other brother attempted to rob a bank with the intention of getting thrown in jail to help his brother escape. As it turns out, he helped design the prison... I won't say anything else... I will just say that it is worth a look.

Did I mention football... I am totally psyched.. after good weeks from both the Cowboys and Rams, I am ready. Plus, my fantasy footbal draft is Thursday. Color me giddy... I can't wait.. Plus someone even mention fantasy football for college football... Heaven!!!

2 comments:

D said...

Hey thanks for the comment on Harrington on Holdem. I just finished his second volume and yes it is a good book. A bit dry as jordan has stated but good info. I think it has helped me in the situations when I am running short stacked and the blinds rising. His thoughts on when to push and when not to push have definetely helped. I think, my rationale before reading this, though not exactly his was vey similiar. He validated my thougts of when I was pushing all my chips late in a tourney.

How has your luck been in the 20 rebuys on poker world?

WillWonka said...

I would say I am in the money about 40% of the time... I am currently around 13th on the monthly leaderboard (top 50 gets into a $3k freeroll) and I believe I only played 6 tournies.. 1st and a 2nd.... so this month only 33%.

I have to say that I do rebuy and add-on, if necessary... but not always. Still.. it is profitable.

Let me know if you get in and I will look for you.

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