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!
