Vacation and New Year

Butch Howard

I took three weeks of vacation at the end of the year to try to get my head clear and decide what to do in the future. My head is not clear and I still do not know what I want to be when I grow up. At 49, I better get busy deciding I think.

I did play a fair amount of poker over the break. The beautiful wife was tolerant of my degenerate ways as long as I also occaisonally marked an item off the small list we made of things to get done around the house.

Poker results for the three week span exactly echoed my annual result: no big wins, no big losses, but lots of little losses. So the bankroll got a bit smaller.

My cash game has improved quite a bit in No Limit Hold Em, at least. I have one huge problem I am trying to rein in, though. I have dubbed it the "Prove Mary Is Wrong Play" or the "Prove I Am Right" depending on what the mood is in the house at the time.

You know the play. Middle position player limps, you raise to 3x with 99, it folds back to MP who re-raises to 10x. You think he either has JJ+ or nothing. Mary says "These poker players are always bluffing, you should call." You say, "It's not worth the call to find out." She says, "Gutless." You say, "Ok Fine, Call." He has KK.

The fact that this conversation happens in my head changes nothing, I know better than to call or raise in these cases where I am certainly beat, but do it anyway. That sucking sound is my bankroll going down the drain. My best wins keep it to slight suck, but it still sucks.

I bubbled about half the large-field tournaments I played, but I usually went out with a large bang instead being chipped away with a whimper as in the past. I consider this great progress in my play. In most of these cases I was in the top third or better in chips and got busted close to the money. I would say that half the busts were bad beats and half were stupid plays no my part. In either case, being able to be at the money bubble with play if I could continue to play smart is considerable better than being there with three times the blinds and barely making it into the money.

So even though I made no money to speak of in tournament play other than that one lucky win last February, I think my game has improved a great deal over the year.

Or I am just blowing smoke up my own butt to make myself feel better as I start a new year. I never know for sure.