Saturday, September 16, 2006
No Secrets, No Amateur
You've probably realised by now that it's not really worth checking this blog on a daily basis. Don't worry (or celebrate), the lack of activity is not because I'm doing my bollocks. On the contrary, it's going very well so far, and one of the reasons I haven't posted is fear of the dreaded bloggers' curse (as soon as you blog about how well a game is going, it goes pear-shaped).
As a man of science though that's only a small part of it. The real reason is that I'm not doing anything special or new. I have evolved a style that I'm very comfortable with online. In many ways it's very simple. Almost all the components are in this blog here and there, you just have to put them together and play in the right games. I have been splitting my time between sit and goes (Party), speed tournaments (Tribeca) and conventional tournaments (mostly Pokerstars and Tribeca, with best results in rebuy tournaments). If one area is going well I'll play more in that area, and if I hit a cold streak I'll switch to another. This is purely for psychological reasons - it is completely fruitless to switch games just to even out the swings, it doesn't work like that.
Now I'm not working, it's interesting that I seem to be almost completely incapable of playing after about 9pm, even if I've had a tactical snooze in the afternoon. This is particularly bad news in tournaments where you can't just quit. There are a couple of reasons that I can think of, but in any case, there's little I can do about it short of staying up till 2 am every morning, which would frankly be a form of torture. I'd quite like to spin up the £300 (Wednesday) or the £500 (Sunday) at the Vic this week, especially as both kick off at 4pm, but my lack of mental stamina over long sessions is a worry. That and my complete lack of confidence in live tournaments, I'm on such an extended cooler in them. In terms of number of tournaments it's not an unusual streak, but in terms of calendar time we're talking 2 or 3 years (if not 5 since a significant result). I might just try the £300 as an experiment and see how it goes. It would be nice to catch up with people if nothing else.
As a man of science though that's only a small part of it. The real reason is that I'm not doing anything special or new. I have evolved a style that I'm very comfortable with online. In many ways it's very simple. Almost all the components are in this blog here and there, you just have to put them together and play in the right games. I have been splitting my time between sit and goes (Party), speed tournaments (Tribeca) and conventional tournaments (mostly Pokerstars and Tribeca, with best results in rebuy tournaments). If one area is going well I'll play more in that area, and if I hit a cold streak I'll switch to another. This is purely for psychological reasons - it is completely fruitless to switch games just to even out the swings, it doesn't work like that.
Now I'm not working, it's interesting that I seem to be almost completely incapable of playing after about 9pm, even if I've had a tactical snooze in the afternoon. This is particularly bad news in tournaments where you can't just quit. There are a couple of reasons that I can think of, but in any case, there's little I can do about it short of staying up till 2 am every morning, which would frankly be a form of torture. I'd quite like to spin up the £300 (Wednesday) or the £500 (Sunday) at the Vic this week, especially as both kick off at 4pm, but my lack of mental stamina over long sessions is a worry. That and my complete lack of confidence in live tournaments, I'm on such an extended cooler in them. In terms of number of tournaments it's not an unusual streak, but in terms of calendar time we're talking 2 or 3 years (if not 5 since a significant result). I might just try the £300 as an experiment and see how it goes. It would be nice to catch up with people if nothing else.
# posted by Andy_Ward @ 9:43 AM 
