Meh, it's another blog essentially. I hope that that the effort of writing about my play will encourage me to become more analytical about my game. I've sorta come to the conclusion that I am about as adept at explaining why I do certain things at a poker table as a Jungle Cat would be at explaining the reason why they use certain hunting techniques.

A large reason why I have decided to join the rank of the internet geeky types, was my untimely demise in the Board's €200 game on Saturday - held in the comfortable surrounds of the S.E.

First out!!! An instinct told me to push all of my chips over the line in the second level despite the fact that my opponent (Reggie) had me by the balls. To compound my error, I spent the rest of the night hoovering around the club relaying my tale of woe to anyone who would listen. I would conclude the repeated conversation with a shrug of the shoulders and the immortal words: "I would play the hand the same way everytime". Sigh.

The below discussion exposed the paucity of this gibberish:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055000479

I have been playing cards since May 2005. I learned the game through home games where I would be the deadest of the deadest money. I improved and began performing better - winning the odd time before having instant success in Vegas Night Pub tournaments (the Industry standard when it comes to Pub Tourneys in Dublin as far as I am concerned).

It is now almost a year since I played my first tourneys in the Fitz and SE. I had a wonderful run of beginners luck. Cashing at the first attempt in the Sunday shorthanded game in the Fitz; winning on my first visit to the Emporium. I managed to split the €150 in the SE at the first attempt, coming through a field that would I now recognise as containing some of the finest players in Dublin. In short, I won about €4,000 in a whirlwind six week spell.

But I wasn't exactly sure how I had managed it.

I had some good natural qualities. I was aggressive and willing to pump it if I detected weakness in my opponents. I was also willing to play pretty much any two cards making it difficult for me to be put on a hand. But I was very lucky. I now realise that I didn't really understand such fundamental concepts as pot - odds, position and betsizing. Because of this off kilter style (or lack of awareness of the standard style - you choose), I created problems for the opposition and was playing with a huge amount of confidence - but I didn't have any basis for analysing or re - tooling my game when the bad times started.

The run of good variance ended (of course it did - I'm not the Chief!!) and I have had to relearn and develop my game since the turn of this year. I have stuck with it. I can confidently say that anyone who played against me between March and June of this year would have been perfectly correct in labelling me as a big Sea Bass. I was doing everything wrong, despite endlessly coming up with reasons why it was actually right. To compound my poor play I wasn't seeing much in the way of good runs of cards and was developing a "poor me" complex.

The haze has cleared. I have developed a niche in live cash games through learning how to play a useful style of pot limit that is suited to the Dublin cardrooms (and after paying a not insignificant learning Tax). I managed a good tournament result in the Jackpot recently on a night where I played solidly, didn't make many mistakes and got plenty of help from a generally kind deck. It was a positive result for me because I am sure that I would not have gotten that result four months earlier, even with the cards I got on the night. I would have found a way to feck it up.

I can become a much, much better player though. I have so much to learn about the game in general and there are endless aspects of my personal play that can be worked on and improved.

It is my hope that the act of writing about my play and attempting to revisit why I played certain situations as I did will help the process of improvment. It may not make for interesting reading, but it will certaintly be useful from my own perspective.