Back to school

I am in no way new to the game of poker. I played poker before it became "cool", before the big TV boom. Back in my younger days when I was just out of school I was hanging out with a few people from the awful call centre I was working in. Everyone who has worked in one of those, or indeed any really boring office job, knows that the only fun you will have is the fun you create yourself - as portrayed well in the TV Series "The Office". We were all very competitive and very into sports and games, yet we were all really bad at both and knew it. One long Friday afternoon waiting for the calls to stop and the lines to close for the weekend we came up with something we called "The Manly Challenge" - to find out which one of us was most manly (and yes, it was definitely not the word that came/come to mind when describing us). It consisted of 4 legs: table tennis (my vote, I knew I would own that), bowling, pool and this new card game that would round the weekend off: one of my mates had recently been to the States and heard of a card game called Texas Hold'em. We agreed to give it a go as a good way to round off the manly weekend; it would include beer, banter and cards - and quite possibly settle who won the title as the manliest man in the call centre.

Table tennis went as expected as I thrashed them all. Bowling also went according to the script: I sucked to the max. Pool was a close affair and in the end it would all come down to the poker. I needed to win and the leader at the time come 3rd or worse. I was chosen to host as I was the only one not living at home - very ironic for a manly challenge really.

After a crash course on the rules from our friend who had been stateside we got it going. In hindsight we did many things wrong: we had no idea how to set up a tournament like this so everything from the order of people to act to the blind structure was very random. It meant a 5-man tournament took a good 12 hours before I could finally claim the win and the $200 prize pool. As the challenge leader going in made it to heads up I did not claim the trophy as the manliest man of a call centre in a tiny, windswept English town on the south coast. However my interest in poker had been born and as I was already very into betting and cards it did not take me long to join a poker site.

Fast forward 10 years and I can look back on many highs and lows. There have been big tournament wins, great evenings with live poker in casinos and with the friends as well as times where I have been running over the online cash tables and equally times where I have been running into bad beat after bad beat and made stupid plays. I have always been a streaky player and when I run hot I am really en fuego, but when I am struggling I crash and burn hard. My performance and therefore my results seems to be mainly related to confidence. Am currently in my worst slump ever and have no confidence in my game at all. On top of that I have absolutely zero bankroll management skills so when I run hot I step up a grade too quickly, and when I am in a crisis I am reluctant to step back down.

Badgerblind and V's project here seemed like a good idea to try and regain some confidence and hopely also learn a few bankroll management lessons. So here I am: "Hi, my name is Douchebag and I suck at poker... "

Unlike my fellow bloggers here I will stick to the Ferguson rules very strictly. There will be no buying into a $10+1 SNG when I only have $200 etc. I need to be taught a lesson so the more discipline the better. I have several leaks in my game that needs plugging and hopefully I can get that sorted at this cheap level.

Day 1: Arrogance gets punished and puts me on monkeytilt.

I started out with a quick game of $0.05/0.10 PL Omaha buying in for my max $5. Money was quickly gone when my trips didn't hold up against a straight/flush draw. I decided that omaha was not the way to go - at least for now. The variance is too big and the danger of running cold and going through a few buy-ins is too great. Also, reducing my bankroll any more would make it impossible to buy in to even the smallest sit-n-gos.

Instead I turned to single table sit-n-gos. where my limit is 5%. $3+0.40 was the maximum the rules would let me buy in to so I did. It all went to plan as I won my first tournament easily. I was back on the right side of $100 and it felt so easy. I have never been short of arrogance, but I felt I was invincible at this level. I signed up for a few more and most of them turbos. After all, despite turbos levelling the playing field I should still walk all over these people right? Not so much...

In total I played ten $3+0.40 SNGs not counting the initial success, and I only managed a couple of 3rd places. I finished day 1 with a balance of $88.30, with even less confidence and badly in need of a new game plan.

Day 2: Redemption
Starting balance: $88.30

I decided to stick to the $3+0.40 SNGs (9 handed) until I get to the $110 that is required to step up to the $5 SNGs and open the door for the odd $2 MTT. I won the first two before I had a brain freeze and dumped $4 on a cash table at $0.01/0.02 NL HE. Play was so freakily weird at that level I just tilted. All-ins of $5 into 0.04c pots looked the norm. Three more SNGs resulted in three 2nd places and the balance was up to $118.60. An early observation is that people don't play heads up as well at this level as at the higher levels. I suck at heads up at the best of times (If I arrive at heads up in a big tournament a 60-40 chip leader I would settle for a chop!), but here it is a different story. Aggression has won the day and the 2nd places were really the result of mainly being hopelessly outchipped going in combined with losing deciding hands like AA v QQ and AK v JT.

My first attempt at a $5 tournament was a failure as I crashed out 4th when my AK didn't hit against his QQ, but a closing balance of $113.10 is satisfying for now...

Douchebag