I’ll try to keep this brief, because I was hoping to have more to say about the last week. But as it turned out, I got food poisoning midweek and that threw off my entire schedule, for both playing poker and recording the show.
Last Sunday, though, I did finally get off the skid in a nice way, with another 2nd-place finish in the WPT $11 12.5k turbo. Frustrating, because it was second place again, and I thought I had a skill advantage and we were deep enough that I could have won. And WPT is pretty top-heavy.
But I’m 1-11 in my last 12 heads-up tournament matches. That just feels like I’m leaving a ton of money on the table. I’m sure some of it is running bad, but I’m starting to fear my heads-up game has become too passive, and maybe I’m trying to small-ball too much, and not stealing pots enough. Maybe some of it is bad luck: Even when I’ve played opponents who aren’t very good heads-up and who will let me do that, it seems like I inevitably get in a pot where I have to put money in with a strong hand that’s still no good. (I keep running into situations like pair + nut flush draw against top pair or two pair, two pair against a straight, straight against a flush.)
So I’m gonna try to review my play and see if I’m doing something wrong.
I was hoping to use the last week to grind more or start recording podcast episodes, but getting sick midweek scuttled all of those plans. To be honest, I still don’t feel like I’m back to full strength. I’ve been able to eat normally the last couple of days, but I’m constantly fatigued in a way I feel like I shouldn’t be. I slept nine hours last night and was still dazed and nearly dozing off while I tried to play today. And then the session was going poorly and I was losing all the big pots from ahead again, so I decided not to push myself. My health comes first.
(Not to just make this bad beat complaints, but for one example, I managed to play a PLO hand where I had my opponent drawing to two outs with one card to come, and lost. Do you know how hard it is to get in a PLO spot with 95% equity? Just getting in one at all is worth writing about.)
Anyway, I should have more free time this week, so I hope to get more grinding in and also record at least our first episode. I’ll start reaching out to more potential guests, too. And if you read this and want to come on the show, get in touch!
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