It's turned around the last 2 sessions, replacing what I lost during the week and more on top. Friday started off pretty miserable, was up about $50 then lost it back and then some, then got a reality check and told myself to get back to the basics of the game and stop forcing myself to try and outplay my opponents with second rate hands. So after that I went on a massive tear and finished the session up $215. Here's Friday's big hands.



The table was playing pretty passive here, so I didn't go for the limp re-raise. The flop was terrible though, but I was beating more hands that I was losing to, so I pushed hoping he'd come along with KK or AK with a club. Even if I checked and he pushed, no way I was folding, if he had QQ or AKs so be it, tough break, but it worked out for me



I played this a little tricky (and risky) just calling the initial bettor and hoping for a raise in late position. Villain obliged, and the rest as we say, is history.



Villain was a losing player and losing at showdown with allsorts of trash. I wanted to slow play and push the missed draw, worked a treat.

Saturday 5 Aug

Got up early on in the session to about $40 and floated around $30-$60 all session, was just about to quit when I stacked someone with KK, carried on plying a while, lost a bit back to a suckout but finished the session up $114. Also cleared this months Interpoker bonus. And got some rakeback payments today, so bumper weekend so far.



Villain was a regular, average player, don't usually see anything stupid. I initailly put her on AA or AK on the flop, hence my flop raise and was 99% sure of this when she called it. By the river, I knew she wasn't getting away from anything in her range so tanked it in and kept my customer. Was surprised at QQ though.



Villain was a complete and utter donk, I knew my hand was good, he might have one heart, but it was a pretty good flop for me given his range and my position.



Sigh. Can't winem all I guess

Great weekend so far though, Fri, Sat +$530

Aug 05 BR $8747 ($1253 to go)

Update time....Been a good week so farwith session of +65, +195 and +32. Combining that with another $100 bonus from Sun Poker and my BR is continuing to grow nicely.



Interesting hand this one. I guess it could have ended with me going down to a flopped set, but villains flop call and weak turn bet just didn't ring true for that type of hand and I figured him for an A when he called my turn CR. River was a money card and I took his stack.



Oops !!

I also scored a set over set when my 99 beat villains 77 for a stack on a 973 flop
And another one when my JJ beat 66 on a AJ6 flop

And just to keep it real here's me losing with AA This was like my 4th hand in on Tuesdays session.

Wednesday was poker night with the home game crowd. We played 3 Sit n Gos with 8 of us, but I didn't cash once. Pete busted me out all 3 times, 1st KK vs AA, 2nd 77 vs QQ and 3rd 44 vs 88, he was a complete lucksack the whole night with 2 wins and a second.

Friday, I played some sit n gos on tribeca (paddypower) with my good bud Dave. We entered 7 $25+$2.50 6-max SNGs altogether and won 4 and entered 2 MTTs, got past half way in both but way out of the money. Total profit for the night was $151 split between us. Very enjoyable.

Aug 11 BR $9167

Feck, not a good session last night.

I ran 44 into QQ on a 774-7-x board
76 in A7 on a A77-x-6 board
JJ into TT with flop of Txx re-raised PF as well
and finally AK into 44 on a flop of A43

This was fun though



-$100 for the night, but +$50 pokerplex bonus

Aug 13 BR $9123

I re-raised in position. He was raising about 14% of the time so I popped it back a decent amount, he called. Flop was Txx. I led, he called. Turn rag check, check. River another rag. Board at this stage was pretty drawy and I wasn't beating much and he bet $40 into a $52 pot, still I managed to donk off a call (Too to post the hh, it was that bad a call....lol) lost around $60 on it.

[Edit] None of them were for full stacks.........could have been a lot worse

THE ONLY GODDAMM SET I FLOP IN A 600 HAND SESSION, AND LOOK AT IT, JUST LOOK AT IT



OOOOOOH MAKES ME SOOOOO MADDDDD, GOD BLESS AMERICA, HOLY MACKEREL

In other news, its been pretty dire since my last update with sessions of +50, -70 and tonight -100. Hopefully I'll still make the 10K by month end but it's going to be a struggle. This downswing seems to be pretty cyclical now, every 2 weeks or so, really wierd but it starts off with me going card dead, then getting cold decked or bad beat. It'll probably turn around in another couple of days, just strange the way it seems to work out at the moment.

I've also started playing some SNGs as well, just baby ones on Crypto £1 + £0.20, rough start, missing out on my first 4, but the last 4 I've placed 2 2nds and a 3rd. The aim is to expand my skill set and learn the tourney game so I can win some big bucks like h2t and 12er have been doing here.

Aug 16 BR $9055

Snow Queen Vodka is TIIIIIIIIIIIIITE....BOF!!

The downward run in the ring games continues, down $112 tonight. Pretty sick run of cards in the end, caught a couple of hands but went down to the slow-players. I don't feel I'm playing that badly, I took a couple of aggressive lines to test the waters and just keep running into better hands and missing boards. All the losses are small pots but just add up, I don't think I played a single big pot in 400 hands, again no sets, makes 1 in 49 pairs in 1016 hands now. Very cold.

I did play a couple SNGs tonight and won both which I was pretty made up with. A 6-max $10+1 for $34 net, and £3+0.60 10-seat for £11.40 ($21 net)

Adding in the Will Hill bonus and I finished the day $10 down so musn't grumble too much. Even so this is prolly gonna be my first losing week in about 16 unless something big happens on Sunday which is next time I'll get to play.

Have a good weekend peeps

Aug 17 BR $9048

Time to update, and this week continued to be mega meh. This is by far theworst run I've experienced since I started playing and has really knocked my confidence. Since the last update sessions went +30, +15 (so I think I'm out of the downswing at least), -10, -145 (was at the same table as AlexMR for that one, hmmmmmm) at this point I'm in a 4 buyin downturn, the most I've ever had and it's not from bad beats at all, just from smallball, losing lots of little pots and not winning anything when I have the goods.

I did, however, win in the fortnightly home game. Played 1 hour limit, which is always meh, hate it, but came pretty much even at the end of that session, just down £1 from starting £10. Then played 30 minutes of PLO which was carnage, but I won pretty good taking my stack from £9 to £17. Then a bit of no limit in which I bullied a bit....well a lot with my near 200BB stack and ranitup to £23 at the end of play.

I got away from cash games a little over the weekend and played a bunch of SNGs with a bit of success, I end up overall anyway so go me..... I won a PLO $10+$1 and placed in a couple of PLO8 SNGs as well. Today I played an NL $10+$1 MTT, totally card dead eventually going out in 57th when my limp re-raised 88 failed to hold up to A7 soooooooted when he runner-runner-runner-runnered the broadway.

Tonight I was back on the cash tables winning about $120 in a 2 hour session which was real tite and felt pretty good after my pasting the last 2 weeks, looking at PT I played pretty loose (for me) at 19/7 the tables were passive, almost UB like and I was able to pick up a lot of uncontested small pots and position bluffs. The bulk of the win came when I flopped a set of 5's and villain couldn't let go of his KK after me firing 3 barrels and getting him all-in by the river. Lost half of it back though taking a shot at the NL200 tables only because it was the same muppets I've played with day in day out on the NL100s.

Interesting hand of the day

Cryptologic
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $0.50/$1
10 players


Stack sizes:
UTG: $126
UTG+1: $109.25
UTG+2: $70.75
MP1: $144.50
MP2: $27.50
MP3: $78
CO: $117
Button: $32.75
Hero: $90.25
BB: $198.96

Pre-flop: (10 players) Hero is SB with
8 folds, Hero raises to $3, BB raises to $7, Hero calls.

Flop: ($14, 2 players)
Hero bets $10, BB calls.

Turn: ($34, 2 players)
Hero bets $26, BB calls.

River: ($86, 2 players)
Hero is all-in $47.25, BB folds.
Uncalled bets: $47.25 returned to Hero.

Results:
Final pot: $86
(Finally got the converter to work)
I'd been raising pretty liberally here in position, he's like about 19/2 (even though I'm OOP here, but you get what I mean) so I think this may have been his attempt at playing back at me. I hit the flop so I bet into him, folding to a raise but hoping it'll make his think that I'm serious about playing the hand. I'm putting him on a big pair or big overs here. The turn was awesome, I'm counting 18 outs now and thats even if I'm behind and the river was a beaut, it just all went my way, possibly could have checked on the end hoping for him to think he's ahead.
Also cleared the classic poker signup bonis for $100 as well, so thats all the crypto bonuses worked now for this month.

Aug 27 BR $9056

Can I add my voice to the chorus of losing August Crypto players? God those players are soooooooo boring, I've had to do a Bodog reload just to keep awake.

I'm sooooo glad August has ended and pretty much disappeared up it's own arse. It was indeed my first ever losing month, but thanks to bonus whoring the bankroll grew a few hundred. I've only just looked at the extent of my downswing just now. Up until the 12th, I was happily going along at around 4.5 PTBB (9 BB) /100, keeping up with the win rate I'd achieved since starting NL100 some 30k hands prior. Then, BAM, the next 10k hands saw me drop 9 buyins...yes 9....surprised me as well when I looked at it. It was interspersed with the odd winning session and with bonus money so it kind of masked the extent of what actually happened, but it's there stuck like a big black blot on my record.

My last entry saw me enter the ongame skins and going after another bonus at hollywoodpoker. Well, I came out of that even apart from a few cents. I was down 4 buyins just on that site alone before a late session on the 30th got me back a couple of buyins thanks to some donkarific play (AA vs QQ, set over KK and rivering a nut flush vs a suspected slow played set) and coupled with the $200 bonus brought me nicely even.

New month now and new start, the cryptos are my target again, already I've done the sun poker bonus, shame interpoker has scrapped NL100 of the bonus list, but can't have everything and next I'm going to do William Hill for the easiest £50 ever. I've had 4 sessions so far, 3 with very mild losses and the 4th winning me over 2 buyins (which was tonight for $205) so it's been a decent start. I have made adjustments since the downswing, playing ultra careful, but not weak, thinking a lot more rather than mechanically shoving chips around, I don't want another swing to that extent for a very long time to come. I'll post some hands when I get round to it, but for now, I feel the drought has stopped and the waters are rising again. Hopefully the 10k won't be too far behind target (End Aug).

Sep 04 BR $9326