The other side of poker...

Some of you may or may not have read a blog I did a little while ago, about the downswings you face during poker, and the feelings that emerge from it. This, is a few different things at once : It's a blog about recovery from that, and some advice, and it's a blog about the flip side of poker.

First of all, the recovery. As you know, there was a point where I could literally do nothing right, most of last month, playing poker. I couldn't figure out how I was doing so badly so consistently, and at some point it just started to ware on me, and make me feel sick even when entering a tournament. It got so bad I would start swearing to friends during a tournament because I lost one pot on a bad beat.

The number one peice of advice I can give is this : By now, you hopefully understand where your place in poker is. You hopefully understand whether you're a winning, or losing player, over the long term. That is really the only solace you have during that time is to tell yourself that you're a winning player, and you'll win again.

During that downswing what I started doing was making notes to myself every time I played a cash game or tournament, I'd track how I lost the big pots I played. I noticed something fairly alarming, either they were setups that I was helpless against(set under set or something along that lines), or I put my money in ahead and lost. Rarely, actually only a very few times, did my notepad have me putting my money in when I was behind when it was a significant spot.

That is all I did, was kept track and noticed I'd lost an alarming number of 60/40's, and I had to start winning. Then came the Hendon Mob FTOPS event, the night I broke the funk so to speak. Out of 1221 players, I finished 41st(I think, truthfully I can't remember now). It wasn't a significant cash value(only 380 bucks or something), but it was alot more valuable than that. Three days later, I won a tournament down in Toronto for 1400 dollars. Then I started playing online poker.

For anyone who doesn't know, my online poker life consists of limit poker, and tournaments. I rarely dive into NL cash games, because I hate the way people play in them(1/2 blinds, raise to 16...there's no logic there, you'd never raise 8x in a tournament or any other forum of poker). I like limit poker, it controls my losses and limits the damage a bad beat does, and it's, at least in my opinion, alot more focussed on your ability to put your money in good. The only number I pay any attention to in limit poker, is my percentage of showdowns won. That simply means the percentage of the times where I either call, or get called, on the river, and have to show my cards to win a pot. If that's high, then you're having a great limit session. Typically, I run at over 70%.

Lately, that number's been alot higher. Actually, it's been over 90%. I've had 6 sessions over 5 hours lately where it's been over 95%, and one where it was 100%.

If you've ever seen the movie Rounders, one of the earliest quotes is actually targeted to limit poker. "Your goal is to make one big bet an hour." It's the theory limit poker players live by, because it's the easiest way to determine you're winning. One big bet represents the bet on the turn and river. Say you're in a 5/10 limit game, you're goal is 10 dollars an hour. One big bet. Now, for a professional? That's not enough, 2-3 should be your range.

The past week I've been playing 5-10 heavily, I'm earning almost 8 big bets an hour, which is an obscene number to anyone who considers it. Basically, if I buy in for 200 playing 5/10 limit, and sit for a 8 hour session, I'll be at 840. For a week now, whenever I play online poker, I'm earning 80 dollars an hour. Life is good.

That can't possibly continue, but I feel like playing limit poker as successfully as I typically do, I should be able to clear 2-3 big bets an hour, which is roughly 30 dollars an hour, without putting alot at risk.

On the subject of running well lately, a good friend of mine, Sonny Rattan, just got back from doing commentary and analyst work for the Pokerstars NHLPA tournament this year. After he got back, we finally got a chance to do something special.

Tonight was the first event of our new Southern Ontario Poker League, Elite Poker. This is something Sonny and I used to talk about at great lengths, merely in a passing sense, "If you ran your own poker tour, would you do this?", was a question we posed alot. It was borderline obsession to the both of us to discuss ways of bettering what we were technically already doing with another company.

After a falling out with the owner of that company, we, specifically Sonny moreso than me, were presented with an opportunity to do this our way. We got some of the best staff available in the area, alot of whom previously worked with us so we were familiar with them, and we as a group set to work developing the tour.

Tonight, was probably one of the most rewarding nights of my life, so I can't even imagine how Sonny feels given the fact that this is his baby finally. To anyone who doesn't know Sonny that's reading this, Sonny is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, he's also made a real reputation for himself in Southern Ontario as he worked for a couple companies running tournaments, and always with the greatest of success. It meant alot to me for him to come to me as his right hand man so to speak, because I have such an admiration for the way he does business and runs the events.

Together, we(and again when I say we, he deserves most of the credit), fomulated a plan for a way to run the tour, but with a, at least I felt, better structure not just poker-wise, but altogether better structure.

Tonight we finally got a chance to run our first event, given it was the first event we set up 4 tables at first, expecting around 32 players to show up hopefully. In the end, and as an alarming show of what I said earlier, just the impact and respect Sonny has earned and commanded down here, we ended up with over double that. 67 players in all showed up to play, 8 tables, the maximum we even allow at one of our events(since they're all hosted in bars), showed up to play. It was a truly overwhelming experience that a first night for a new tour could be anywhere near that successful.

Since I know at least some players who play the tour read this, I'd like to take time to thank each and every one of you. As we say alot, this is as much you as it is us. Tonight was just an amazing show of dedication from you, and a truly fantastic experience. This event was a little more work than it was where we used to work, but I did it all gladly given the pride I had in the event, the turnout, and what I beleive to be the best free poker you'll find.

So, to everyone who was there tonight, thanks for making it a memorable experience. To Sonny, thanks for letting me be a part of this.

Lastly, to anyone going through a downswing, here's the only thing I can recommend outside of the simple notepad file. Play more hands. Get agressive, start trying to make things happen for yourself. What I found in the Hendon Mob Event was that breaking the streak was fairly easy because I played agressively and quickly developed a huge stack, and never really took a swing back to the pack, there was actually no point from about 20 minutes in on, where I wasn't going to cash. I always had a large chip stack, won countless small pots, and really took any fortune out of it. Finally got the few breaks I needed, and worked deep into the event.

Tomorrow the FTOPS starts off again, and next month Pokerstars will be running the World Cup of Online Poker. Both those tournament series' are of interest to me, so I'll see what ones I can play. I beleive the first one will be FTOPS event #3 on Friday, a $200+16 buy-in Pot Limit Hold'Em Event.

And for real lastly this time, congrats to Tomas for winning the first event of Elite Poker. See you all tomorrow.