Travelling quite well

I'm very fortunate to be travelling at the moment for a month. I had one week with work in Germany, followed by Ireland and the States. Thanks to the ash cloud, the trip was a little longer than usual having had to travel via Hong Kong.

Germany has to go down as my least successful poker destination. I broke even with a grand total of break-even. Basically the only game was in a smoking room off a 10-pin bowling alley and I passed on that experience tyvm.

Ireland is very well served with card clubs and I've shown a modest profit s far. The Fitzwilliam is probably my favourite card club in the world, apart from my Friday night home game. I almost bubbled their tourney getting my money in with AQ when I called an AJ shove from a short stack in early position. Alas, the BB woke up with TT and came over the top and I called. A J on the flop and they shared my money. Downstairs, my first hand was A88 and with pocket 8s I had to contain myself as first to act went AI and MP then shoved AI over the top. Happy days, triple up to 450 Euro. I had another few lucky hands, dropped some profit before finishing strongly for a 380 Euro profit on the night.

The Banbridge Bridge Club is not enjoying the best of times at present. Numbers are down and the atmosphere is nowhere near what it used to be. Quite sad really as it was a poker oasis in the North of Ireland. Hopefully it will improve but at present it seems to be limping along. I have always had concerns about playing bigger stakes to provide the buzz of a big win. The Bridge Club always seemed to be playing at stakes above the local economy and I'm not sure that they didn't break the recreational players. I fared wuite well, bubbling a S&G while we waited for the main event which I came 3rd out of 30, followed by a great cash game, only 4 handed. Another live win.

I'm playing very confidently these days and my modest losses online are really inconsequential compared with my live winnings. The experience of thousands of hands provides a big advantage over the purely live folks. It amazes me how many of them refuse to play online for a variety of reasons from fixed, boredom, not real poker etc. In my opinion, it is a big mistake to close your mind to any opportunity to improve.

And so to my modest losses. I have tilted off a bit of money on a few sessions. My game has improved a lot of late and I am trying to play a LAGgier style of PLO than I used to. It goes well for a period but when I lose, I tend to lose big (relative to my bankroll). I have been successfully dropping down in stakes and grinding back up again. I scored two cashes out of 4 SCOOP attempts that helped maintain my roll.

Currently I am playing a little bit of a game with myself. I have been multitabling up to PLO100 which given my results is clearly above my abilities but is helping me improve at the game. I looked at my HEM performance by stake and realised that there are a number of levels that I didn't beat on the way up. So I started picking off each level where I lost and was determined to turn it around with bring myself into the black. It's funny how even 1c/2c when given relevance can become serious stuff. The relevance for me is that I won't get to collect my Stars reload bonus if I don't build up my stake levels. Thankfully, I am up to 10c/25c PLO8 at this stage and the points are starting to accumulate again. Unfortunately, having turned around 4 or 5 losing levels, I am struggling with this one for now. Playing way too loose. I guess its better to be losing at what are relatively insignificant stakes.

So that's whats been happening this month. My next update should include a report from the Commerce which I am really looking forward to.