I just won £1150 playing 1/2 live. £300minimum sitdown 3 handed for few hours then 4 handed. I ran well and played very well. Then as Im cashing out my 1450 I look at the normal 1/1 table and see a guy whos a donator is chipped up, along with a few other unknowns. I sit with 175, eventually being in for 575. Basically everyone is 200-600BB deep which is just beautiful. trying not to sound arrogant these guys didnt have a chance. At somepoint im gonna hit my backdoor draw and get massively paid. So I pull out my fishing rod. any two suited or slightly connected cards preflop and if I flop 3 to a straight and/or 3 to a flush or any pair with backdoor draw im pretty much peeling any pot sized bets.

Then this pot happens. opened to £8 (its a loose game my standard raise is 14 on that 1/1 table) and a few callers. I call with 32o from SB. flop 4c5s6s. I check to raiser who bets £40. I call as do 2 others. Turn a beautiful brick Qh. I check, check, shove for £167. Re shove for ~580, I have him covered. Its a lot of money to me so I took a while to call after thinking it through and decided that if hes got 73/78 (he had raised 83s the hand before) then I've just gotta chalk it down as a cooler. So theres £500 in the main and another 400 on the side before I call. then the guy behind me sticks in his 200 aswell!

first shove = 666 (apparently but didnt show)
overshove = 64
over call = As7s for NFD and OESD.

River = BRICK and im being shipped over a 1.8K pot on 1/1 blinds.

tonight I made 2.4K twinned with the 2.7 I cashed out playing dealers choice on thursday, unfortunately I went halvers with someone in the dc because it was going to be a big game and I wanted to be able to reload. but still 3.6K in two sessions Is pretty sweet.

It also appears that my new comp has in fact NOT being boomswitched as Iv dropped like 10 buyins on 10NL. WTF? 4 of those were pure spew and some down to 12 tabling nonsense but I did receive a few standard suckouts and coolers.

Im going to try to knock poker on the head til my exams are over, but Im playing so well live its gonna be a struggle. It feels so good and empowering and confidence boosting to keep making the right decisions, the right folds, the right bet sizes, the super thin value bets and super light calls.

Its not just the decisions that im making in the hands either. I've really been thinking a lot about game selection recently, and I was wining £500 in a 300 sit down on new years day and the two guys to my left were the other strong players at the table and both had me covered. the other 3 guys only had like 200 each. I was tired and card dead. I thought about leaving but stayed and did my stack in two hands. Its a lesson I should have learned 1000 times before, but this time it sunk in. I recognised that I wasnt playing well and wasnt in a good spot and should have that extra 800 to my name but I dont. I've played another 4 sessions live since then and have left one game because I was making the wrong desicions and playing badly even though it was as soft table with a lot of money on and I've stayed in another when I was supertired and wanted to go but I stayed because I was making the right decisions.

Game selection is not about looking down the lobby list at the %age of players per flop or average potsize. Its about recognising (and being honest enough) to know when you are playing badly or your oppenents are playing well. Watching a video or going through hh's is far more productive than playing anything other than your A game, no matter how good you are or how big your edge is over the game. Sure theres always a game you can win in playing your C game, but taking that lower winrate over studying and improving your overall winrate for all future games seems pretty retarded to me... I wish I'd spent more time studying instead of playing sub-standard poker.