Belated Update

I guess you're all wondering how it's going?

I've just been grinding away and have been putting off posting somewhat as I'm not sure I've got anything useful to say.

The pattern of attempted recovery over the last few weeks has followed this cycle:

Get head straight - play well for a day or two - make money - take some beats - play badly for a day or two - loose money - stress - stress as bit more - get head straight again - etc etc.

I haven't wanted to write anything until I felt I've broken the cycle. I can't be sure that I have now but I think my attitude is better. I think I've played well so far this last week and correspondingly the results have been better.

I've been playing some fairly small stakes as the bankroll has been (and still is) very depleted. I've been playing £100 and $200 tables with half stacks.

I've also become somewhat addicted to these new Head Hunter tournaments that Crypto are running. The prize pool is split in half. 50% is paid out to the top finishers as in normal tournaments and 50% is split up and each player has a bounty on his head. For every player that you eliminate you receive 75% of their bounty and the remaining 25% is added to your head. Buyins for these range from £2 to £20.

They are sooooo soft! People play far too loose in an attempt to knock you out and so all your half decent hands get paid off to the max. I've probably plaid about 12-15 of these. I've final tabled 5 times and won two. Ok, so top prize is never very much (I won a £2 one for about £90 including the heads I took and won a £10 one for about £270 including the heads I took) because so much of the prize pool is shared out as bounties, but my ROI in these things must be pretty good. It's just a shame they don’t have more £20 ones.

Incidentally I'd never won a NL Holdem tournament until now. My only ever tournament victory before was in a $20 PL Omaha Hi/Lo comp for about $500. My best ever Holdem results were 3rd in the Party Poker Steps tournaments ages ago for $3600 and 3rd in a £5 rebuy at the Gutshot for about £250.

I've also been playing a spot of pot-limit Omaha Hi/Li and even some Razz to wind down at the end of a long session. I think I've been a small loser in both.

I don't really have much else to say. I guess this is kind of a transition phase for me. If I can properly turn this around and pull myself out of this hole then I intend to give this full time poker lark a proper shot. If things don't pick up much in the next couple of months then I should have an alternative lined up as I've passed all of the selection processes so far for the job I've been applying for.

That's your lot for now. I hope to be able to bring you more positive updates soon. (That's more updates that are also positive rather than rather than more updates of a positive nature. Shite, this is making no sense. What I'm trying to say is that I consider this to be a positive update and that I hope to be able to bring you more of the same soon. Jeees, gimme a break!