Exciting times

July 23, 2009 by Mark Stuart

This is my first post since Vegas and, as predicted, the break was just what I needed. Despite losing money overall, mostly due to getting sucked out on three times in a drunken cash game in the Venetian, I now realise how much my game has come on. I mean, it’s obviously not that great or I’d be playing for a living, but sitting with the tourists and even keen recreational players in Vegas, I could see that my game and thought processes were so far ahead of theirs it’s not true.

So where do I go from here? Well, I can say with hand on heart that for the first time in months I’m genuinely excited by poker again. It feels like a brand new start and a fresh challenge now that I’m dedicating a lot of my time to playing cash. It feels like I’m learning poker all over again – and it’s great! That heady rush as you sit down for a session not knowing what’s in store and hoping for a table full of fish just waiting to donk off their hard-earned money. I can almost smell it.

Part of this great feeling I’m having definitely came with getting the sit-and-go monkey off my back. I had gone through a long and brutal downswing in SNGs and they are such a grind it’s not true. It really wore me down and was definitely stunting my creativity and enjoyment of the game. So I’ve finally quit them, and I’m enjoying playing so much more. For now I’m finding my feet in the .25/.50 cash games online and playing some MTTs and satellites for fun. And that’s what poker feels like at the moment – fun! Long may it last!

Despite the bankroll hit that I took with my SNG problems, at least I got something out of it – I cashed in my 50,000 FPPs on Stars and bought a new 32-inch LCD TV and 24-inch Samsung monitor. And once you’ve multi-tabled on a decent-sized screen there’s no going back…

Share