Monday, January 28, 2008

Play Chips Are Ruining My Life

I play a hell of a lot of online poker, and lately I seem to have increased the amount of time I play greatly. I'm a decent player, and almost never fail to finish in the top 15% of any tournament I enter, depending on the cards I get, and the mood I'm in.

When I'm playing well, you can almost guarantee that I will make it to the final table every time I play. But that seems to be my problem of late. I am catching a really bad run of cards, and can't seem to make a hand whatsoever. I'm still finishing in the top 15-20% almost every tournament I play, but mostly that is due to making lots and lots of folds, and never chasing a hand to showdown, in the hope of hitting something.

It is starting to impact on my play though, and I am playing way to many marginal hands, and even when they hit, I am making the wrong moves more often than not.

As a result of this, I am not playing for money at the moment, but with play money. I'm doing this for two reasons, firstly, to protect my bankroll, and secondly, to try and ride out the bad run of cards, and when I start getting a more even distribution of cards then I will step up to real money again.

But I am getting increasingly frustrated with playing with play money due to the fact that most of the players only treat it like a bit of fun, and just move all in whenever they get the chance. I realise that I should expect this, but being so used to playing for real money, and the way that people actually care about their chips, I tend to expect all players to do the same.

After all, if you want to improve, there is no point in not playing in a manner that will serve you well if and when you start playing for real money. I guess thats my big gripe about play money tables and tourney's. Its so easy to just reload your free play chips that people don't care, and as such will never become decent players.

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