Giving up my game plan

It only took me a couple of days, but I have essentially given up on my game plan. It was a really good game plan (play $2/$4 full ring limit and heads-up SNGs), but it had two big problems also. First, full ring limit poker requires that you play a lot of hands, and my life is sufficiently complicated these days that I rarely can sit down and play for an hour or two. I play in short spurts, twenty minutes here, thirty minutes there. Second, those heads-up SNGs get boring VERY quickly.

With that in mind, I gave up heads-up SNGs today (at least for awhile). I was losing a bunch of them because I had lost the patience to grind out wins against my opponents.

My stack at Poker Stars had dwindled to about $22. Nevertheless, I bought into a $0.25/$0.50 (blinds) short-handed no limit game. I lost my buy-in ($12) on the first hand when I bluffed at a dangerous board and I got called by a call-station holding JJ (seriously, the only hand he could have beat was a stone cold bluff, which sadly was what I held). I re-bought into the game with the rest of my stack and I doubled up a few hands later when I flopped a flush with 9d 2d from the big blind and pushed all-in and got called. A few hands after that, I pushed all-in preflop with QQ, got called in two spots, and I won again. So, my stack went from $20 to $10 to somewhere in excess of $50 in about 10 minutes.

I don't recall anyone ever mentioning the variance associated with playing no limit (just kidding).

The other interesting news in my poker life is that Titan Poker gave me a free $10. Just for giggles, I bought into a low stakes no limit room for $5 and I built it up to around $10. How exciting! Who knows, maybe someday I'll have thousands of dollars at Titan Poker?!!!?