Born 30 something years ago into a card-playing clan in the North of England: the low-roller's poker odyssey has taken him from the school common-room via down-trodden Midlands' casinos, smoky Cotswolds pubs, celebrity Soho drinking spots and of course the ubiquitous world of cyberspace to the home of poker itself, Las Vegas. Join his search for juicy take-downs, great pot odds and the occasional back-door straight as he goes for glory.
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Saturday, September 23, 2006
AND THE SECRET IS.....
I sat down in front of my Imac nearly seven hours ago - Max, my son, was asleep upstairs. Curiously he had requested Tales of Shakespeare three nights ago, and tonight we finished off The Tempest, of which I knew little, barring the existence of a character called Ariel, and the eponymous tempest in there somewhere. In a word it starts bad, bit stormy, but Prospero comes good and redemption is had by all. So what you may ask? A truly crappy synopsis of one of the great works of literature. Well it sort of mirrored my fortunes tonight.
FullTiltPoker send you regular articles, written by people someone has heard of - which are always useful. The moment you think you have nothing to glean from anyone else's take is the moment of hubris. So the last piece of advice was to move out of your comfort zone, and play a level higher than you are used to, provided you have the bankroll to support it. Particularly applicable to the Lowroller, who has been gradually building the 'roll' a few hundred dollars at a time, risking little, playing weaker players. All very well, but it doesn't raise one's game much, and this method becomes quite dull, and then you lose your hunger and next comes the losing streak. Hunger is everything in poker. Hunger and confidence.
So last night after playing Omaha $1-$2, where the maximum buy-in is $200, I decide after finishing just out of the money in a Sit and Go (six people all paying $55 with the top two getting cash) to go and 'win' it back the fast way. So down I go to the lobby, where everything is just dandy, but no sign of anyone playing Omaha at $2-$4, but there is a $3-$6 'Cap' game, which means that the most you can bet on any hand is 60 times the big blind, so $180. So I sit down with $360 , whisk it up to $770, take a couple of beats on the river, and find myself with just over $130 - not good. My first adventure at the higher limit ( well second in fact - you can check out the last 'post' for more tales of online madness) was following an all too familiar pattern: win early, fail to cash in and leave, lose the winnings, then play hard to try and win it back. I was all set to cash it in, but I wanted to go to bed having passed the milestone of $5,000. Anyway I wasn't going to let the game beat me, so I fought back and a few hours later I left the $3-$6 table with $352, with a sense that I could handle the higher echelons. It didn't help that the second game I'd been playing $1-$2 Omaha saw me make two bad decisions which cost me a couple of hundred bucks. So I went to bed down a hundred or so, several hundred short of the magic 5K - by the way this is a completely fallacious approach - go to bed at $4,999 or $4,875 or when the matchsticks keeping your eyes open start to draw blood.
So today I moped about, not quite with it, slightly irritable, clutching my medium wave radio, hanging on the putts and drives of those adventurers at the K-club. Mr Micawber had it right you know. Self-imposed misery, until finally I pull the finger out and cook roast chicken with the bread sauce, and it all goes down well, and I begin the night job, which to begin with didn't feel great. I started at the $2-$4 Omaha table with a degree of fear and trepidation, and to cut a long story short I am down over a grand in under an hour - I didn't make my draws. I lost twice big time to bad players with aces, with my draws failing to materialize, and bought in the maximum for a third time, determined to play better - I can't really claim bad luck. But most of all the fear had dissipated, and I played well, and my $400 buy-in at one stage crept up over the $600 mark, albeit briefly. In the meantime I had entered the midnight MTT - multi-table-tourney, $69 + $6 (registration - for my hard-working friends at FullTilt). This was a DS tourney - they love their jargon - meaning instead of $1,500 chips, you start with a double stack, giving you more time to play poker, rewarding skill (yes I can hear the laughter). It usually takes four to five hours to reach its conclusion. Anyway I had decided that once I busted out of the MTT, I would quit for the night, before I really did some damage on the Omaha. In fact I quit the Omaha just after 3 a.m. with $567, so I had clawed back a little.
So what is the secret? The Secret is in fact a film I watched recently - www.thesecret.tv - and it is remarkable. Having learnt what the secret is, tonight I put it into practice. To summarize, the primary law of the universe is the law of attraction. What you think about you attract. I was playing fearful poker, I was inevitably going to lose. Fear is the most important hurdle in the whole of poker. If you are out of your comfort zone, fear is more likely to trip you up. So during the hourly break in the tournament I sat with eyes closed and saw myself winning the tournament, and attempted to experience that feeling of winning - and then I get brought back by the omaha table beeping at me - it was my turn to act: I had AAQJ, double-suited, as good as it gets, so I raised and got four callers. The flop came Q-10-7, 'rainbow' and I checked in middle position. Anyway the hand got checked to the river, by which time I had made the 'nut' flush and won a modest pot of $55. So a good start for The Secret - what you think about you attract - I hadn't exactly bet fearlessly, but the flop wasn't great for me.
So where is this all going? Well to cut a long story short, the $13,000 guarnateed tournament went well. It went very well. Indeed. Yes I took it down. At every hourly break I spent a minute seeing myself winning, actually attempting to experience it.
Heads-up took most of an hour. I started with $400,000 chips to his $200,000 and twice doubled him up, but each time bullied my way back, before J-J took down his A-8. I still have the words on my screen:
"Congratulations! You finished the tournament in 1st place. $3,910.92 will be credited to your account"
So that is the secret. It truly is an astonishing movie. I'll be ordering another copy soon. In the meantime, dawn is on her way in damp Donny. I'll be awake again in a few hours for a game of golf, and I'll be applying that secret, you better believe it.
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