What a Difference a Day Makes

On Saturday I had my worst day of the year so far. I took Sunday off and on Monday I got back all but $11 of the money I lost on Saturday. I've noticed that I have a much more difficult time with the weekend players. I am certain that the weekend players are worse and you'd think that would make them easier to beat, but in practice that hasn't been the case for me.

I have a few theories as to why that might be. I think the main problem is that two pillars of my game are bluffing at a ton of small pots and avoiding putting in all of my chips in close situations. The weekend players have a tendency to call with much worse hands so those small pots that I'd normally win aren't coming my way. Furthermore players who aren't very good, but have some experience have a tendency to make big bluffs more often. Consequently I'm faced with more tough spots where I have to make a decision for more chips than I'd like to.

Another problem is that one of my strengths is playing hands in a certain way and betting specific amounts in order to convince my opponent(s) that I have a specific hand that is different from what I actually have. The regular weekday morning and afternoon players are pretty good (but not great) so they spend time thinking specifically about what I have. It's possible to convince them I have a perticular good hand when I don't and a bad hand when I have a good one. Conversely, you can't make a bad player think you've got something different than you do because they're not thinking that hard. They're mostly focused on what they have and sometimes it doesn't really matter what you do.

Or I'm just running bad on the weekends. It's really difficult to tell.

Meanwhile the pokerstars double frequent player point (FPP) promotion ends today. I have mixed emotions about the ending of this promo. I'm sad that after a week and half of piling up FPP's at an insane rate, I'll have to go back to generating them at a slower pace. But I'm happy that I can take a guilt free day off in the middle of the week.

After a sweet day yesterday and another good one today the last 10 days have been a solid success. I didn't make it to my upper end goal of 30,000 hands in 10 days, but I came within a whisper of my secondary goal of 25,000 hands. If I didn't get my doors blown off on Saturday I would have played on Sunday and finished in the 28,000 hand range, so I feel ok about how hard I worked.

More importantly I used the FPP's I earned in the past 10 days alone to purchase an entry in a $1,500 WSOP event! The rewards for playing at pokerstars are hands down the best of any poker site. For playing the same amount on another site I'd probably have enough points for a sweatshirt and a box of golf balls. You can keep that shit! Give me the WSOP seat baby!

My goals for the month are going great. Since I worked so hard this past week and a half I've already played 45,000 hands this month. Out of the remaining 9 days in the month I'll only have to work 5 to make my goal of 60,000. Also the hands that I've played have been quality hands. If the month ended today I'd be ahead $1,200 more than any other month this year and if I can keep the pace up I'll have about the 6th best month I've had in the past 4 years.

Also a reminder that I'm off to Vegas for 5 days of WSOP and general merriment on May 31st. Look out for a WSOP preview extravoganza the like of which you've never seen! Not really. In actuality it will be a brief preview, but look out for it anyway!