A few hours of play

Good morning, I’ve managed to play a few hours in the last two to three weeks, currently up about $200. Sense that ‘Stars are spending a little more on playing bonuses, so might be worth your time.

Serious play has continued to centre around Zoom poker. Latest 10k hands are break-even (recent returns corrected a small downswing earlier this year). I’ve returned to $50NL Zoom because it’s the lowest stakes without an ante. I’m not disputing that the ante games are beatable, but without a major adjustment to my style it feels like a drag on win rate. The 50 games don’t feel much tougher so that will be my new home for now. 

I’ve also indulged in some degenerate Spin n Go play. Just for fun. Although sensible chip-EV decisions have got me a 37-38% ITM rate so far, I’m not sure that’s sustainable. Will let you know. You can get through tons of these very quickly, so maybe I’ll bink one of the higher payoffs at some point.

Will post the 10k graph and stats soon as that might be interesting.

Hi internet

It's been a long time.

I'm really not sure why I don't play as much poker as I used to. Of course, there's the "poker dream". I wanted to play professionally as much as anyone back then. But life happened; fortunately, I do quite well from an ordinary 9-5 nowadays. More than "the dream" though, I think I just burned myself out; I stopped enjoying playing every day.

To the present; I fancied a game on Sunday afternoon and have grinded a few hours since. Not winning, as you'd expect after a long break, but I've been very happy with my play in general. It's really surprising (to me at least) how quickly I settle back into the routine: * Pre-flop discipline; * Post-flop assessment and decision making. Also all the things I learned from experience and videos soon come back when I get going. Usually my memory works differently; I'll often forget what's learned if I don't practice/practise something regularly. That's never been true for poker, even though it's been nearly ten years since I played regularly enough to consider myself a serious player.

One other note, I've been playing a lot of chess and that's distracted me from poker for the last year or two. I'm not a strong chess player but do enjoy the game. At slow time controls I might be class A or B standard. Drop me a comment if you'd like a game.

Back to poker, then; I've really enjoyed playing. No pressure, calmly playing the hands as well as I remember to. I have made mistakes, no question. I snap-called a river over-bet from a loose aggressive in a spot where it just screamed bluff - but the player had top two. I didn't maximise value on a different river where I had the near-nuts on a very wet board. But in general, I think my ROI is more a function of variance than my play.

So what next? Well, I've really enjoyed these hands. Looking back at "recent" blog posts, all promises of a return to regular play have proven false - apologies (as if anyone still reads these mindless posts). I'd like to think that I'll play more often, and if I do, I'll share my results and a few hands.

Until then, good luck.

Please let me know if you do still read this shit. It might encourage me to post better content. I think I used to at one point.

GL!