Man, I am seriously loving poker. I get some beats that really bother me sometimes, but man, I'm making so much money.

One thing I've realized though is slight changes in my play can have very bad effects. For a few days I had tried a slight change in play, and I started not making anything. I change back, and the money comes pouring in. The more I think about it though, the more it starts to make sense as to why it had such an effect, but the game just seems to get very picky. Need to do a combination of things to make money, and missing some of them can leave you wondering why you've hit a brick wall.

I'm up a cool $620 in the past 3 days at .25/.50 - which is in line with what I had been making before my "slight change." I'm hoping this isnt a fluke and I can maintain this, that would be badass.

-Matt

From what you truly believe is good, or even great, poker is what you're playing right now. It's the SAME poker that you felt was great poker before you had a skid or experienced the falls that you experienced. I know what the right moves at the right times are and they can backfire at many times, but you make them all back and then some when you're clickin' on all cylinders.

How many times have you seen me take a beat because of a called bluff where my opponent should've never called my bet with what he had? I knew he was weak, but he called. I wasn't observing him well enough to know that he cannot lay down a hand. That was the weak spot of the moment and that's that.

You're using your strengths against your opponent's weaknesses and that's why you're having a great few days. That's good. But don't allow yourself to get down when you lose half of what you've won- tomorrow or you keep on with this great streak and lose a bit the next week.

That's why they call it gambling. The better player wins, and only evaluates themselves, in the long term.

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what was the slight change?

Nah, Alex, I really did change my strategy a little. I ended up tightening up way too much. It got to the point that when I finally played a hand, everyone just folded to me. What I did was go back to being a little looser, which can incur some small short-term losses, but allows me to profit quite a bit on big hands. Did you see that one hand I posted where I raised to $10 preflop and got 2 callers? Then got $20 more off each on the flop with my set of aces, then got 1 of them to go all in with me when he had nothing but middle pair? Granted, they're idiots, but without throwing a few chips around every once in while (I'm certainly not loose right now by anyone's definition), I could never get that kind of action.

-Matt

Well, that's what I meant. You're incorporating your instincts with the ABC poker. When you're instincts are off or you're in the "not so right mindset" for a few days, you're gonna take a loss or two. We're human and the cards don't know how much is in the pot, how loose player X is, and so forth.

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