hiatus and vacation

Well, it has been a very long while since I last posted. I spent a week's worth of time in Austria for my friend's wedding (actually, they were already married for well over a year but no friends or family attended so this Austria trip was intended to serve that purpose). So I was the best man and didn't really start until I had some quiet time on the flight over - we had 3 connections to make. A word of advice, don't do it!

Anyway, back to poker. Besides feeling a bit lazy to blog - which is probably the real reason, if I had to give another reason - I'd say things haven't changed much in a larger sense. Sure, I've been playing a little streaky here and there and I've maintained my account size for the most part (still hovering around $700) but I haven't really encountered much learning experience lately. A couple of live cash games dried up for me in that my schedule has been conflicting with what's available.

However, in the last few days, I have been on a bit of a losing streak. I did break my rule of losing 2 games in a row, I'd stop for the day. That happened twice so far and I did sort of go on tilt. I think some of my problem was I tend to pay off bad plays. Once I made a bet to make it a bad call for a flush draw on the flop. I think I overbet the pot (around 120% the pot) with a flush possibility. However, when they called and hit, I'd pay them off. I have to stop doing that.

Anyway, I do have some news to report. Due to the tilting, I decided to play some $100 sit-n-gos. Now, I placed 4th in one and didn't get paid out. Then I played another one and took 3rd - $80. Not too bad but still I wanted to take at least a 2nd. So after my mother's day dinner, I came back and played another $100 sit-n-go.

This time not only did I make it into the money, I was heads up and suddenly the other guy suggested we chop. We were bantering pleasantly the entire game and we did respect each other's game. So he suggested that we chop and what we'd have to do is both sit out and he'd send me the difference and once I verified the transfer, I'd continue to sit out as he sat back in.

I'm not exactly sure how it is a guarantee that in the future someone can't screw me over but I suppose that situation wouldn't really happen unless both players were about even in chips. Having both players sit out, keeps the chip count the same and even if someone were to sit back in at the right time and raise, they'd only gain a small blind. But I guess if the person transferring the money didn't really transfer, then no email would get sent. So after about 10 minutes, if no email arrived, then no chop. But if the sender did send and the receiver is claiming that they didn't get the email, then the sender would get screwed. I guess that's why he asked me to type agree in the chat box so he could at least have some type of proof to put up to pokerstars.

Anyway, splitting first and second was a nice $360. It definitely made up for some bad beats.

Well, my PS3 has finished downloading Gran Turismo 4 HD. Later.