Back to 25

I dropped down to -3 buyins at NL 50. Now, I was figuring on quitting after five. But.

I liked playing 50. I thought I could beat the level, and could do it on a regular basis. I still do; I think once I workout my postflop play and scale back a little on my preflop aggression I will do quite well. However, I wanted to make it my primary stakes. Not being rolled, I figured I'd build my roll playing turbo 15+1s, since playing the 10s was how I worked up to the roll for 25.

Man, is tournament poker ever different than cash games. I played fine, but still lost four straight. (outkicked, out-turned, lost two flips) I felt really constrained, because I like to be aggressive preflop on and on the flop, and that's just not possible at a SNG because in the midlevels, raise, c-bet, and if that's called, there's not much room to maneuver.

I'm going to do the nose to grindstone thing with NL 25. Amusingly, my recent antics make me no longer rolled for it in the strictest sense of the word (19 buyins) but I'm confident that I can rebuild.

I'm going to wait until I have won $600 more at NL 25 to make a go at 50. When I move up, I want to be able to stay there for a considerable duration, and I want to prove to myself that I really can crush 25 the way I think I can.

I'd hoped to be moving up by Christmas, and felt it was a realistic goal. I'm down over $300 in the last couple days. (some of that profit from NL 50; actual losses are $214) I will consider myself fortunate to be playing 50 by my birthday in April.

so it goes.

I feel like such an idiot.