Well, today has to have been the biggest rollercoaster ride I’ve experienced in my short poker career.
I started off this morning catching up with all the poker blogs and I noticed that Lord G had pointed out that Party Poker was offering a 15% reload bonus up to 100$ (code RELOAD). This is what I’ve been waiting for since I ran my bankroll down at the 1/2 tables. So, I threw in the 307$ I had in my Neteller account and got cracking.
I have been noticed that my attention tends to wander, even when playing 2-3 tables at once. I tend to put a movie on or read web pages as I play. So, to try to focus a bit more, I decided to play 4 .5/1 tables at once. I figured that pace should make it impossible for me to pay attention to anything else.
And I was right. With 4 tables open, I couldn’t go 5 minutes without a few playable hands. I only had trouble keeping up with on odd occasions, when I had 3 or more hands to play at the same time. But my progress was fairly steady. I went up 20BB pretty quickly and then bounced between there and 50 for the next couple hours. I hit a bad -12BB run just before dinner to finish up only 27BB on the afternoon. But, I’d also unlocked my 46.05 worth of bonus in the 650+ hands I’d played. That helped to offset my big loss on Wednesday.
After dinner I decided to hit the 1/2 tables again. I’ve been having a bit of success there the past couple nights, and had a good short session this morning to convince me that there was money to be made there. Also, I wanted to move back to fewer tables so I could watch a movie I rented (Timeline, which was even more mindless than I had wanted for the evening). It started well, with a couple early wins. But then things took a turn for the worse. KK went down to AA for a big loss. My flopped straights (and yes, there were more than one) went runner-runner flush for my opponents as I bet it the whole way. And countless other suckouts, some where people had the pot odds to call; most of the time they did not. But I still ended up paying. In less than an hour and a half, I managed to drop a catastrophic 35BB. I was not amused. There had gone my profit for the day.
So, in what was perhaps an ill-advised move, I decided to hit the PL25 tables to see if I could quickly make that money back. Any time you want “to make your money back” you know you are heading to the poker table with the wrong attitude. Still, I have never lost money at the PL/NL tables at Party/Empire – knock on wood. And even if I do manage a winning session, how quick can it possibly be.
An hour and a half later, i’m up to 62.65 at one table and 88.45 at the other for over 100$ of profit. I don’t know why I ever go anywhere but these tables. Good play gives you such a huge edge playing NL and PL. I’ve always been leery of the large swings that are possible, and I know that a big loss can have a negative impact on my game, so I try to avoid it. But the pickings are just too good, and obviously the swings I need to avoid are at the 1/2 tables.
Of course, I just lost 55 bucks to a flush over flush beat, so my mood is suddenly not quite as positive. But the table is starting to get crazy. I just need to bide my time and I can get paid off.