Variety is the spice of life

I've always made really ambitious claims in the past that I would grind out 500 STTs straight, or that I would (cough cough) play about 20k straight hands of FLHE.

In the past I haven't been able to stick to my word, shifting between STTs, MTTs and rings after getting sick of playing the same game day in and day out. Not only do I get sick of the same game, but my quality of play drops like a stone in water. I start making careless plays and not playing my game, and that's obviously never good. I've decided I have to spread my time across different games to make sure I don't go nuts like I nearly did yesterday. Especially when the MTTs are as juicy as this:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t150 (9 handed)

CO (t3725)
Button (t12550)
SB (t5095)
BB (t13680)
UTG (t7514)
UTG+1 (t6026)
MP1 (t14341)
MP2 (t21780)
Hero (t11573)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with Kh, Ks.
4 folds, Hero raises to t485, 3 folds, BB raises to t13680, Hero calls t11088 (All-In).

Flop: (t25328) 8s, 8d, 3d (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t25328) Qh (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t25328) Ts (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: t23221

Results below:
BB has 3c 3s (full house, threes full of eights).
Hero has Kh Ks (two pair, kings and eights).
Outcome: BB wins t25328.


I've obviously noted villain in this hand. I'd stolen his blind once (yes, only once) up until this point, betting the rag flop and taking it down with my unimproved KQh. I could tell the way he folded that he wasn't happy with my steal and that he'd probably be fighting back at me if I continued. Queue KK, queue flopstars and the bad beat.

I'm not bitter at all, I'm actually very happy with my play and will be playing the $3+R more frequently again (I used to play it religiously) in the near future.

On a side note, I'll probably have to delay part two of the FLHE strategic post series. To be %100 honest, right now I'm running so bad in rings that I'm going to need a little break and some change of scenery to refresh my mind. I'm actually still up in winnings with fixed limit, but my winrate keeps shrinking with every session.