Monday 18th

One of the most frequently asked questions from within the mentor group is 'when do you stop playing?'. Be it a winning session or a losing session, for me it comes down to a number of reasons. The main reason for me to stop would be that i'm not playing well. Winning or losing if i'm playing below the C game and I call it a day! I know my D game is a long term loser!

Obviously there are times when i'm playing good but its just not happening. The AK AQ aren't hitting, the continuation bets are getting called and raised and the few low-medium pairs are failing in their quest to become trips.

As for the suited connectors, well they're a punt at the best of times but when its just not happening they become a very expensive punt! So days like these I don't hang around too much and try to get out as quickly as possible. When it's going well I like to keep going for as long as I can play well.

Saturday was a good example....everything was going amazingly well with every hand I played turning to gold. Then I made two glaring mistakes that cost me a buy in. It was time to call it a day, which brings me nicely to today...

I've carried on the good work from the weekend and am another good five-six buy ins up. The session has been pretty much mistake free so the only way i'm quitting is if the poker gods turn against me. So, of course they do. The table they would choose was plainly obvious. Of the four tables i'm playing there is one where i'm sat with four buy ins as well as two other players. One of the players was a long term multi table winning pro and the other was a newbie fish who we were both playing. The problem with this fella was he had no fold button had indeed no need for one as everything he played ended up being a winner hence his rather large stack. So to the hand, i'm dealt A4s on the button where all fold too. I make standard pot bet SB folds and he calls. Flop Ad 5s 3s which I would say was a very nice flop indeed. I bet pot and he calls. Turn is the 10s - I bet pot and amazingly he raises me pot which can mean one of two things:

1. He either got the lower flush

2. He's got trips.

Now i'm getting all his money if he holds either of these hands and know he can't fold, but i'm uneasy about putting my chips in and him having trips and sucking out on me. I might as well wait for the river, so I call and a sickening A falls. He's bets half the pot and I call. He shows 1010 and I see a potential eight buy in pot evaporate and then watch a very healthly two stack pot slide west.

This, my friend is the perfect time to call it a day.