New Direction

Whenever I go on a bad run as standard, I look back through hand histories and evaluated where I went wrong. Most of the time the problem is, I played very well and got sucked out on. I mean, maybe I was over aggressive in certain spots, but in tournaments - you cant sit on the fence all the time. You have to get your money in when in front and hope for the best or the blinds will murder you.

Problem is, getting your money in when in front and relying on big hands can often murder you too. I played 8 tournaments today and without getting into hand specifics, this is how I exited all of them...

- Preflop all in my KK lost to AK...

- Raised with AQ, AQ and AJ in one tourny and missed everytime. Pushed with KQ sooted on a flush draw and missed when short stacked.

- Lost with AJ on A high board to flush draw the very next tournament, how ironic...

- Headsup, I push in the small blind with 66 with blinds at 250 / 500 and both of us sitting on around 7500. He calls with AQ and I never win coinflips, so out in second for one of the few cashes of the day...

- I also ran 99 into JJ twice when pushing preflop as a short stack and lost out both times.

- I also ran KK into AA twice and again lost both times when money went in preflop.

- 3 handed, the chipleader raises me all in on my blind. I reraise all in with AK. He insta calls for everything with A5. Turn 5, I dont improve, I'm out in 3rd for another cash that was few and far between today.

- I push in small blind 4 handed with blinds at 100 / 200 and my stack at 2000. The big blind insta calls with roughly the same stack. He has the monster J 9 offsuit which is no match for my AQ...

The point is, I only made any of these plays because I had to, circumstances in the tournament meant that I had to make extreme plays, that if deepstacked, I wouldn't of had to. Whether or not statistically the favourite so often or not is irrelevant. Everything is on the line often.

So, I bit the bullet and decided to go back to playing cash games. Now, me and cash games have a bad history. In fact, I've never turned a profit on them. I once played off a total bankroll of $1000 and managed to offload $800 in just 6 hours playing 0.25/0.50 NL on Full Tilt, that is - by any ones standards - pretty fucking crazy.

But, in theory I should do well. My edge being that I probably have an edge over the majority of cash games players at the levels I'll be playing. I'm going from High Stakes SnG games to 0.25 / 0.50 initially and therefore hoping to eliminate the losing element of my game which is totally obsurd but "Getting my money in when statistically a favourite"

I will be using the same principle in cash games, however the variance will be a hell of alot lower. For example in cash games I can see alot of flops and play alot of flops, which is my strength. Whereas deep in tournies, its just push push push. If I dont hit a flop in a Cash game, I can just hit the fold button - whereas chances are. Its all been decided preflop in a tourny whats going to happen.

Anyways, I played a 1 and a half hour session today on Pacific's cash tables and walked away with a nice 40 Big Blind profit.

I wont be making as much as I potentially could of in SnG's and I am now prone to losing alot more, so it seems absolutely crazy to play cash games. But by doing so, I can now eliminated the only losing element of my game which is being forced to push with hands and losing [even though I am nearly always the favourite when doing so!]

Anyways, I'll keep you posted. I'm pretty optimistic about my new path. I'm gonna stick to 0.25 / 0.50 for a while and see how I do and then take it from there.

Good luck in life!