Time's are a changin...

Up until recently I have primarily been a tournament player, whether it be multi tables or single tables. I have been reasonably successful at both although playing MTT's can be very frustrating as you can go a long time without winning a large amount of money. STT's also get very boring if you play too many of them. Both take up a lot of time. I do not have a lot of time at the moment as you may have noticed by my lack of posts.

So, I have taken to playing cash games. I started with $300 on Blue square and started at .50/1 and moved up to 1/2 and 2/4 once I was over $500. It took a few weeks but eventually my balance was over $1000. It takes a while to adjust to cash from tournaments but I think I have made most of the changes necessary.

Once I was at $1000 I experimented at 3/6 and also played some Badugi and Omaha as well as No Limit Holdem. there was a while where I could not get my balance up above $1300, I was only ever losing my buy ins at the higher levels and having to go back to 1/2 to build it back up. These losses were mostly to AA getting beat all in pre flop. It always seemed to happen when I was covered which was annoying, especially annoying when you have over $600 at a $200 max buy in table and the only player who has more chips than you gets fiesty with 99!

Anyways, eventually i reach my target of +$1750 to take a shot at $5/$10 knowing that if I lose the $750 buy in I will have enough to rebuild at the lower levels. Initially I was up to just under $1000 in 15 minutes until I picked up AA in the big blind. The button raised to $35 so I pumped it back to $100. He moved all in for just more than me and I called into the biggest cash pot I had ever played. He had QQ and hit a Queen on the turn. Oops!

Unperturbed and convinced I could handle this level I went back to the lower levels and rebuilt another buy in. This time I played the same game and although I lost a few big pots to outdraws I had won enough early on to come out with a profit. Within a few days I was at $2700 even with some MTT losses and a few buy in losses at the lower tables. Game selection is most crucial at this level and I avoid playing when the table is full of long term winning players. I keep an eye on the games when I am playing something else and only enter when there are more than two weak players at the table.

Yesterday I had the biggest win in cash I have ever had when I cashed out $2500 at $5/$10 and $3000 at $10/$20 for a profit of $3250 in 2 and a half hours. I have now lost 3 pots with $2000 in them and each time I am in a pot of that size my heart beats a little slower each time. Since I lost that first buy in I have had 7 winning sessions in a row at $5/$10 and $10/$20 over about 12 hours. This is still a small sample and I know that my run cannot continue forever but I am going to carry on. For the first time I am leaving the winnings in my account to play with. the plan now is to get to $15,000 and then cash $5000 out and repeatt until I am a millionaire!

On the live front my reports will continue elsewhere on Antes Up for the bigger games which is all I will be playing for now. Last night I was at the Friday home game for the first time in ages and finished 7/14 and 3/12 with Mr Fagan snr and Mr Fagan jnr taking my chips. It was great fun to be back playing that game and I hope that after christmas I will have enough time to play it more often.

Stay Lucky

Mike