Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Good intentions, but bad behavior?

I've got another Vegas trip coming up in about 2 weeks, and I feel the need to pad up my bankroll a little more. A substantial percentage of my poker time lately has been focused on live play, and while that is interesting/enlightening/fun/educational/etc.., it is very inefficient timewise at making money from a risk/reward point of view.

I decided to multitable $3/$6 at Party and Euro simultaneously to clear the latest Party bonus and also get more rakeback in my Euro account. This is so much more efficient and reliable than playing live $20/$40. I actually have very little money in my online accounts, so it would actually be unwise to play multitable $5/$10, let alone $10/$20 or $15/$30.

My online bankroll is very borderline now. If I can put in a few good sessions at $3/$6 this week, I'll have a reasonable online bankroll for $5/$10 for next week. I'd like to set a goal for earning $1800 from online ring games before going to Vegas. That will give my overall poker bankroll another 30 big bets of cushion to play $30/$60 at the Bellagio.

Results-wise, tonight's $3/$6 session was reasonable. 3 hours with +5BB/100 hands, plus the bonus and rakeback.

However, my big mistake was to start this session while not well rested/mentally prepared. When multitabling to that degree, you take a lot of ridiculous beats. Without thinking, I started getting upset. Over time I started muttering and swearing under my breath. My wife was in the same room working on her laptop, and this is just the kind of thing that really disheartens her to see.

There was absolutely no reason for me to get upset while playing online limit ring games. It serves no useful purpose. Whenever this kind of thing happens, I always apologize to my wife later. However, I'm sure from her point of view, my bad behavior just seems to happen over and over and over again. I say I'm sorry, but practically the next time she sees me playing online, I'm back at it again - groaning, moaning, tsking, shaking my head...

My wife grants me a wide degree of freedom to pursue my poker hobby, and I simply must do better. I owe that much to the both of us.

Driving to the bricks and mortar poker room gives me a few minutes to get into the right mindset. I have to make it a habit to spend a minute or two getting ready before jumping into any online session.....

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