Change of Season

     I'm ready for the shuffle,
     Ready for the deal,
     Ready to let go of the steering wheel.
     I'm ready, ready for the push.                    U2

  It's been a brilliant summer, the hottest since records were kept, and I've been out watering the garden every second day for the last month. The cicadas have been droning away, the beaches have been crowded with sweating bodies and the frangipani we bought last year has been fooled into flowering way earlier than expected. But despite all the distractions, I've managed to play quite a lot of online poker this summer.
   I've been playing nothing but SitnGos for the last three months and the results have been very pleasing. I started out at the end of November with an overall loss, but by mid-January I was at the break-even point and now my bankroll is showing a nice profit. In fact, a couple of weeks ago my bankroll hit an all-time high, although it's dropped back down a little since. My 'Plan C', as outlined in a previous post, has been yielding some pretty consistent results.
   At this time of year I usually decide what sort of games I'll be playing in the coming year. The plan is to play two game types: the game that I've had the best results from in the previous 12 months, and a new game that I haven't played before. There's no doubt that my most successful game of the last 12 months is 9 player online SitnGos, thanks mainly to the last two months of results. The Texas Holdem six-max fixed-limit cash games and the online tournaments don't even come close. So I'll be playing more SitnGos in the coming season.
   The new game that I'll be playing is Fixed-limit Seven card Stud. I've wanted to try my hand at this game for some time. In fact, I meant to try it last year, but after a disastrous attempt at playing Omaha the previous year, I decided to play it safe and stick to the relatively familiar Texas Holdem fixed-limit. So, having played maybe three hands of Stud in my life, I'm going to give it a go. I have been reading up on Stud strategy a bit, but I expect it'll be a bit of a struggle at first. However, past experience has taught me to dip my toe in the water before diving in. So for the first few weeks I'll be playing in play money games and observing the cash games. Then I'll start at the lower levels and only move up if I have some consistent success.
   If I want to play Seven card Stud I'll have to play on a different site. Although 888 has Stud tables available, there are hardly any players on them. Any time I've looked I've been lucky to find more than three players on a single table, and these have generally been at the higher levels. So I visited a number of websites that compare poker sites to see which were the best ones for Stud games. Oddly enough, 888 was frequently listed as one of the best sites for Stud poker! The other listings were pretty inconsistent from site to site, but Pokerstars got quite a few mentions. I checked out Pokerstars and found that the Stud tables were pretty well patronised at all levels, so I downloaded the software and am ready to give it a shot.
   I took a look at the Pokerstars SitnGos as well but they seem to consist mostly of turbos, super-turbos, 6 player games and other variations on the standard 9 player games. So I'll be sticking to 888 SitnGos and playing Stud on Pokerstars. Meanwhile, I'll be continuing my never-ending search for live games that meet my exacting standards. I'm determined to find a regular live game that I can afford to play in. But for now, it's all online.