Is it just about winning money?

Results have got to be the ultimate scorecard, but only over the long term. In the live environment, because we don't get to the long term, it's important to keep a check on whether you're making more good decisions than bad. I'm convinced that online helps to be objective with the technical side of the game. Feel and hand reading ability is something I'm not particularly good at as a math player so that is up for debate.

The psychology of poker explains that there are lots of motivations for playing poker. Socialising, fun, testing oneself. Beating one's self up as an addict where your worthlessness is laid bare with just how unlucky you run being one of the more disturbing reasons. Bloggers are a mix of competitiveness and profit motivated for the most part. Hence, while we try not to be results oriented in the short term, we always know where we stand. Thoughts?

I’ve dropped a few hundred bucks while my AI EV line has just kept going up. I’m down about $450 on the month in luck which is approx 10 BB/100 over almost 4.5K hands at PLO100, I think. It just goes to show how much variance there is in this game. The good news is that my $200 profit could easily have been $650, or higher if I’d been lucky. Not complaining, just making a note.

Certainly not complaining about our local pub chip chop last night. Blinds 25c/50c with $50 max BI and after a couple of hours I was up about $75 with the night drawing to a close. Then came the defining hand of the evening. I was on the button with K9o and it was limped around 7 handed. I made it $3 to go and the SB who is extremely loose made it $10. Best player on the table calls and I call. 3-way to the flop of K94r, happy days, top 2 pair. Blinds check to me and I make it ¾ pot for $30. SB calls and with little hesitation, aggressive internet kid shoves AI for $130. I could Hollywood and bring along SB but wanted to take it down so I was AI quickly. Pocket 4s was most likely, followed by AA or AK. In actual fact, it was a highly questionable shove with K7o. SB had folded QQ and when the K came on the Turn I was home. Trust me, he had a lot of fold equity here and I admire the play very much. His mistake was that my calling range may have been AA, AK, K9 and set, approximately the same as my 3/4 pot raising range at that highly dangerous time of the night. Is that aggression profitable long term or ego getting in the way?

Next hand I had KQo and it’s that crazy last few hands stage. Again, preflop raise was to $10 and I called. Yes, that’s 20xBB. Flop came QQ2, you beauty! Heads up he led out for $10, I dodn’t bother checking stacks, this was mine at 11pm, I called. Turn blank, don’t even know what it was. Irrelevant when he shoves AI for an instacall. He had KK and got very unlucky. Once again an obscene BB/100 live.

Incidentally, the host of tonight’s Invitational Tournament was at the only other running chip chop table and cleaned all but 2 players out in about 45 minutes for a $300 profit - even more obscene. For the record, Australia right now is a low stakes poker player’s paradise. The internet though is the benchmark of how your game is going.

On that front, I checked out PokerTableRatings which I’d never seen before. I might invest in purchasing hands when they build up a better set for PLO. For now, I was interested in my PTR score of 32. Given isildur is 96, and Zigmund is 0, I’m not doing too bad I guess but obviously not a very scientific measure, must be just of BB/100 or something. Anyone know?