For any who are interested, podcastalley have a loist of 13 poker podcasts up, available here.

I'm already a fan of Stacks and Cincinatti Sean on Card Club, (archives available here), and Phil Gordon has put up some fine podcasts giving a pros view from the inside out of this years WSOP.

The rough plan is to run through some samples of the rest, and throw together a rough review of the thirteen listed. Categories for judgement - I'm thinking, sound quality, expertise, uniqueness, guest spots, and shill factor. Any suggestions, feel free to post.

In poker news, I've just hit the tail end of a two week vicious beating. Pokerroom.com was Pol Pot. I was Cambodia. 230 dollars in ten days, at 50/1 and 1/2 Limit. Horrible, terrible, and I still bear the scars.

I wake up shivering, at night, in a cold sweat thinking about holding Hiltons in the big blind. It gives me the Fear. The Fear I tell you.

And I have far better things to be dreaming about.

It took a lot longer for my discipline to nosedive this time around, and my standard of play - which is good enough to sit down at the 2/4 tables at pokerroom and come out ahead - held up for the main part.

I'm crawling back up the rungs again, getting together enough money to take another (underfunded) shot at 2/4, and thinking about the lessons the last two weeks have taught me...

- If I'm as good as I think I am, the money I've lost is just on loan. Stay focused, and disciplined, and the tables will turn. By playing my normal tight, and attentive game, I've clawed back 130 of my losses in ten hours and 50/1.

- If I'm as good as I think I am, I've got a whole lot left to learn. The major factor in me feeling good about the last two weeks is using the lessons the table is teaching me to pick apart my game, most particularly with how I deal with loose hyper aggressive players. Tied in to this is how I play an umimproved AK/AQ with no draw after the flop, and how I play pocket pairs with overcards on the board. I'm less aggressive in most situations with AK/AQ, and more so with pocket pairs.

- I've dropped AJ as a raising hand up front, a long overdue move on my part. In late I'll raise in an unraised pot, or in middle I might (rarely) raise if I think its likely to thin out most of the field behind me. Specifically, if the table is tending to fold to my raises on a regular basis, I'll have a greater tendency to raise with it. AJ is a hand I want to have position with, ideally on a table where a late post flop bet will make people fold umimproved, or with low/medium pairs on the flop. Unless its suited, I want to take the pot at the flop or before, and I tend towards the idea of it as a stealing hand. I still play it up front on occasion, as I think, unraised, I can drop it easily, or play it hard without tipping my hand too much when it hits. Its a useful early hand to play with, as a raise in late on the tables I frequent quite often means A10, A9, KQ, KJ, pocket pairs down to 77. I've also increased the amount that I call with or fold A10 in late. A10 is a hand I still have some tuning to do on.

- I'm betting less on the river than I had been. That, and my changes in play on AK-J have made what would be two minor losing sessions into minor winning sessions. Again, its a matter of discipline. I'm losing a lot less money when I am beat, and still not leaving that much money on the table when I win. Its a simple principle. But hell. Arrogance is the enemy of a thorough education.

Hence, in ten hours play, 130 dollars profit.

Now that I look back at the changes in my play over the last two weeks, they seem quite significant. Without them, I was still able to put in an overall positive hourly rate - even with the 230 nosedive - for the total time on the limits involved. And most of the money I lost, was in situations where I had the best of it before the river.

But I guess the benefits of idiotproofing my game against myself are plain enough to see.