A much better start to the month

03.10.2020 Saturday morning/afternoon (2 poker sessions lasting 1-2 hours altogether)

It's all about the end of the month and staying focused. Poker is definitely a confidence game, and building momentum. I had managed to increase my buy in of £100 on Pokerstars by 26% only to once again burn £5 on the football bets...again. I returned to the table and was off sync, I felt 'off key'. My AQ ♠️  suited was dominated by AK ♥️  suited and even though I hit a Q on the flop, a K came on the turn and I lost one $10 buy in. I managed to recoup some of the losses with some nice smallish pots, but still I felt unfocused proved by the fact that I missed a huge opportunity to get an extra bet in or two versus JJ when I hit 3 8s on the flop and quads on the turn, only to slow play too much! I checked the river, hoping for the player to bet again but of course he checked. Badly played and goes against the advice from the experts. Play your strong hands aggressively. Still. I am 12% in profit and I must take confidence in that. Poker is a long game and I'll find my momentum again. When my final hand, AK offsuit flopped strong with a K of hearts to a one suit (hearts) flop I played it aggressively and was called on every street by an opponent to my left. The River came a Q of hearts and I checked - he bet $3.30 and I called. He held A clubs A hearts. That was typical of how my evening went. Time to take a breaker I think. Stay off the football...read...no take your girlfriend out for a meal.

Poker is only a past time, but keep to your personal target and mission statement. It's all about the end of the month. You want to end up in healthy profit and build the momentum from there. Come on you can do it! The players on Pokerstars are generally easy to read, weak/tight players and on the most part easy to beat with aggression when you can sense weakness, and this allows you to win many pot without show downs. However, you must do this cautiously as on the odd occasion there is a player slow playing aces or he realises what you're doing! Overall, I now realise it is not really about the cards post flop, but it's important to keep to a pre flop strategy for both loose and tight games and adjust accordingly. I'll share the tips for this post flop strategy in the next blog post.

Saturday evening (one hour of play)  Back to better heights again...

I stayed focused, didn't bet on the football (thankfully as I considered putting 4 goals on the Man City game which ended 1-1. I did have Calvert-Lewin down to score though. How good is he this year?) and made a nice comeback to restore my profit margin for this month to 24%

I returned to my sharper plays and better style of play by keeping to the pre flop strategy for tight and loose games at micro stakes and I got lucky when my AA was faced by an all in raise to my right with my opponent showing KK making me an 80% favourite, and the aces held up.

My biggest pot win was actually with Q ♣️  8 ♣️ called from mid-late position on the 6 max 0.05c/0.10c table when a fantastic flop of 8 clubs 10 spades J clubs came down giving me a huge 16 outs altogether.

The turn was a K giving me even more outs with an A. I bet aggressively again on the flop and the turn (about three quarters of the pot each time) against just one opponent who called each street to the river.

Then the 2 clubs fell on the river giving me my flush. I bet again, suddenly got re raised (!) and as I knew it was highly unlikely he had a K high flush I went all in. This stopped the player in his tracks for a moment, but he had no choice now, he was pot committed. So he called with 9 ♣️  4 ♣️  to hand me the pot. Bad luck man. Bad luck.

Enjoy your poker.  Thanks for reading and rating my posts.