I’ve been a little slow on my posts lately, but at least it’s because I’ve been playing a lot, and not just being lazy.
In the last couple weeks things have been going great. I finally figured out a few strategy points that I was missing and it’s made a tremendous difference in my game, and in my win rate. I’ve moved up to 10NL ($.10 big blind/$10 buy-in) and my win rate is currently at 8BB/100 hands over my first 10500 hands. Last night I set a new record high for myself in money earned in one day. I have more than doubled my bankroll since I started the cash games. So far, I have only logged a single losing session at 10NL since I moved up. That loss was for one single dollar. Not too bad if I do say so myself.
I really think most of the success I’m having so far with the cash games has to do with the lack of stress. Without the added pressure of tournament play, I seem to be able to get through 95% of my sessions with almost no emotional charge (except for feeling good when I end the day ahead). With less stress from the start, I’m able to play more hands, and see things go up and down a lot more. That leads to even less stress.
With every session I play, I get more and more confidence that I can ride out whatever negatives come along. The first time your pocket Aces get beat, it drives you mad, you can’t believe it. The 10th time, it still gets at you, but not so bad. After 100 times, you don’t even think about it anymore. The more times you go through the bad and see the good again, the more confident you become that there is always something good waiting there on the other side if you just get through this little bad spot.
When someone beats my made hand with some whacko 1 in 1000 suckout, I try to look at it as a positive. Yes, this particular hand sucked, I lost money, and I don’t like that. But still, I know I was making the right play, and now that we got that 1 in 1000 shot out of the way, I’ve got 999 more times where I can do the exact same thing and I’ll win. That’s not so bad, is it? I’ll gladly give you what’s in my pocket now, this one time, if I can come back and take stuff out of your pockets 999 more times.
I guess that’s all I got for today. May the fish be with you.