Okay day overall. Decided to play some PLO tonight to ruin a good day. Picked up some hands in the afternoon session and ended up against some donators, so made two buyins over 200 hands. Second session pretty boring standard stuff: $12 over 200 hands.

I then played some PLO for some reason (maybe I felt like I needed some brutal suck outs). That started off terrible and I dropped $22 or so after about a half hour (real good hourly rate there). I learned my lesson. Don't get your money in with the best hand, and don't play PLO. Eh, I just needed a change of pace. Maybe I'll swith over to HORSE for such occaisions.

Back to 50NL tomorrow. Table selection at 25NL this afternoon was not that great, so if 50NL is as poor as I fear then I may just stick to 25 for the afternoon and move up in the evening.

Well let's see. I rate today subpar hand wise but pretty good playwise. I think about a $15 loss from poor play coming from two hands in which I refused to give credit to my opponents. One of them a pretty dreadful $10 bet on the river. The other a mistake but not so dreadful. Got AQ and AK numerous times this afternoon and missed numerous flops. C-bets got the shit kicked outta me; so that plus the $10 led to a $59 loss. Played again this evening and won back $29. No big pots all day. Still waiting on some cards.

I took the Poker IQ test thingy posted in the NL forum section: forum/viewtopic.php?t=23159
It's also posted in AG, but there's a link to that one in the above thread.

People can bitch about the test all they like, but it's pretty good aside from tournaments. I scored way too high there. I suck balls at tournies as I have said before, whereas H2T and ED do not, and they scored poorly there. For the most part the strenghts and weaknesses sort of match up to what I thought of my game, but with some surprises, such as tournies being too high and pot odds being much lower than I would have expected. I took it twice. Once with my two-year-old climbing all over me, demanding more juice, or to switch out the DVD, so computation speed was really low. Took it again after he was in bed and scored better in several categories aside from computation speed. One question I realized I had answered incorrectly (the T5 in the BB tourny question, so I intentionally changed that one; I must have changed a few other answers, but not sure which ones. Prolly results can be rounded down a bit. Anyway, results below:
Total 134 (previous total 124)
Positional Play 90%
Blinds 71%
Tournaments 87%
Big Pairs 69%
Small/Medium Pairs 86%
Bluffing 65%
Flop Texture 77%
Pot Odds 71%
Logic 81%
Betting Patterns 79%
Hand Selection 86%
Aggression 77%
Computation 75%

So weaknesses are blinds, big pairs, bluffing, and pot odds. Pot odds, as I said I would have thought I would do better on, but I think this may be weak from a few questions where the range of hands that you put an opponent on versus odds dictate a call. I may have just thought, "he prolly has X and I should fold." I'm going to try and get those who scored well on big pairs to explain their answers in the forum; same for blind play.

One other thought about this test. It says I'm good and yet I've been getting my ass handed to me for the past 8K hands at 50max. This leads to two possible conclusions or some combination thereof. One: the test is full of shit; I really am just a slightly above average player slumming it up for 2-3ptbb/100 at low stakes. Two: I'm running bad, very, very bad. The test is basically correct in evaluating ability. I hope it's number two.

I played a $10+1 SNG this afternoon for a change of pace. Came in third when my tp hand drowned at the river to the chip leaders btm pair turned trips. All-in on the flop. Win that hand and I'm walzing in to first place. Sort of fun to play, as it's been months since the last time, but I was also reminded of the pain of these things. Generally it feels like someone kicks you in the nutts if you don't win it...well, at least I feel that way.

Interesting day. I played quite a bit both at Bodog and UB. Played HORSE this afternoon at UB, .25/.50 two tables. I won a massive $4.85 for my time plus about $2 in bonus. Still enjoying the new games. I'm getting a good feel for Razz now. After this played several different limits from 1/2 to 5/10. This went not so well. Card dead and when not, a victim of a sick river fill for the gutshot.
1/2 41 hands -$8
2/4 70 hands -$32
3/6 41 hands $13
5/10 41 hands -$52

I had been wondering, particularly after the Poker IQ test, what my NL game looks like now. I'm definiitely a different player now than I was just six months ago. So I played some 25NL at UB so I could get some stats to look at. Played 150 hands or so and picked up $20. I play a lot fewer hands from the SB than I used to, and I raise quite a bit more than I did. I picked up some hands tonight, so I need a few more hundred hands to get a more reliable picture of my play.

I then got back on the limit tables and logged 243 hands at 2/4. I picked up right where I left off and was quickly stuck $70. Picked up some small pots then finally got some hands to hold up and finished the session up $70.

I listened to the Chip Reese interview on "The Circuit" from last summer. Yeah, yeah, I didn't know such a thing existed until I joined BTP and discovered it in the "Books, Articles, etc." forum. Interview is in two parts, but the first part I found more interesting. It's a great interview and Chip is just giving pearls of wisdom left and right. One thing Chip pointed out as a flaw in some players' games is that they play too short when they win and too long when they lose. I do this, so it caught my attention. I play longer sessions when I'm stuck because I want to get unstuck. If I'm winning then I'll just quit after 200 hands or so, cuz you know, I won. Chip's thoughts: you play with more confidence and so better when winning, so you should keep playing when you are playing well. You play less than your best when you are losing so you should play for shorter periods. Makes sense to me. I'm going to try and implement this plan in the future. I would add that there is also a psychological advantage because the other players at the table fear you more when you are kicking their asses than when you keep getting the shit kicked out of you. Even if it's just one bad beat after another, people seem to respect your raises and bets less when you are stuck.

I'm going to change up the bankroll post just slightly. Various others also post a cumulative monthly total and I think I will try that as well.
Current Bankroll: $3358
March: $289.46

I'm coming off a horrible eveing, so as I write I am repeating to myself that there simply will be days like this and I need to just relax and leave it at the tables. As a glimpse into my night of hell. I won exactly one pot at 1/2 limit: I raised on the button and the blinds folded. The last hand of the night involved me with AK utg and a fish who overplays Ax hands OTB. Board 2AK K x. He had AA.

So anyway. I played HORSE this afternoon and was quickly up $57 and then roughly 40 hands later I was down $23 then clawed back to a $13 win. Took a look at the limit tables tonight and they were juicy as hell, but I play NL during the week, so I went to play some 100NL and the table selection was okay, so I just bought in to three nice looking tables and was good and card dead. I mislplayed one hand and it cost me $48. 3 limpers I raise in the SB w/ 99 and get one EP limper. Flop comes out 752 rainbow. I lead $14 into the $24 pot and he calls (leaving himself roughly $24). Turn card is a Q. I put him in and he calls with KQo. I think I should have just bet $20 on the flop. Maybe he calls that, I dunno. If he just smooth calls and pushes the turn I might be able to get away from this....maybe not just one over and he was a donk. At any rate I decided to hell with that shit there were some good limit games going so I moved over there.

Limit games were no longer as good as they were when I logged on, but still decent. Hopscotched around various limits. The only limit I had any success on was 5/10 where I played 43 hands for $66. The rest of the limits were basically a repeat of the 99 vs. KQ sort of miracles for those fuckers. Lost $27.50 at 1/2; lost $78 at 2/4; lost $8 at 3/6. So all in all real shitty.

I have a ton of grading to do tomorrow so prolly only going to get an evening session in. Hopefully tomorrow goes better. Meh.

Glad to help PZ; saw your graph

Played a little late last night, so just straight to bed. Well, I foolishly decided to play more 2/4 HORSE. The players are so bad, I thought I could make up yesterday's debacle. I ran like shit and got thumped for $78. Just awful stuff. 7th street did me wrong repeatedly. In O8 I think I earn the most Sklansky bucks on 9755. I fold that hand preflop but two other players at the table like to play it. I also fold when I have absolutely nothing on the flop. I don't chase the 20th nut low hand either. Lots of Sklansky bucks yesterday.

In the evening I played some 100NL and lost $11 over 200 hands. Off to a great start when I flopped a set of fives. For the next 190 hands I frittered that good start away. I lost $20 on a failed steal attempt; raising the donk bet into me on the flop. I lost $42 with . Two callers preflop and the flop comes JJ6. One caller of my c-bet. I had him on smallish pp and decided to fire a second barrel $30 into a $40 pot, but he called again and I raised the white flag on the river. . Nice hand sir. Prepare to be pilfered when I have an overpair. So those two hands took care of my wins and put me in the red.

After day two of the HORSE debacle, my UB acct. was down to $177 so I decided to try and run that back up a bit playing 10NL. Then I decided to just play loose as hell. Limped a ton of pots and realized I hadn't been raising so started throwing in some raises as well. All very maniacal. Did that for about 60 hands per table. I was 47/15 at one table (lol, that's a record). Then I switched back to my normal TAG game. Well, not exactly normal. I cut out the bluffs and blind steals. My big hands got paid off really well. One guy calls my push on the river with on a K5444 board. I had K4. I lost $5 or so for the first 60 hands including one set over set for $7 or so, which indicates that I actually might have been up if not for that. I made back the losses and finished up a very slight $3. Not a huge score or anything, but fun; I think I needed that.

Got my ass good and kicked today. If you like war documetaries, you probably would have liked watching my afternoon session. 157 hands at 2/4 and obliterated for a $87.50 loss. Played some HORSE and made $10. Tonight I started off with some limit: 45 hands at 3/6 and made $33.50 though lost $23.65 at 2/4 over 200 hands. Looked like my 2/4 session was going to be a $3.65 loss, but I managed to lose $20 in my last orbit.

I switched over to 25NL at UB and was doing well until I ran AQ into AK. AQ on the flop, J on the turn and K on the river. Guy was also a calling station so his range was pretty huge and he was just calling me down. No K or T on the river and I make a very nice profit. Instead $5 for 362 hands.

Finished up the night with some 1/2 and .50/1 limit. Lost 25c at the lower stake and lost $7.25 at 1/2. Pretty well card dead, so kind of a small victory.

Meh to today's play.

2/4 has been my bread and butter, but I cannot seem to book a win. The streak continues at 1/2 and since I don't have a ton of hands at limit, I don't have a whole lot of confidence in my win rate. From the looks of things, I think I tend to be one of the best players at the table. Nevertheless, I know that I ran pretty well numerous times; so now I'm in a spot where I'm starting to doubt myself. I don't plan to stop playing limit, but I'm thinking of dropping back down to .50/1 and 1/2 while my confidence level is so low. Thie more I play this game the more I think the real game is in your head. How well you do depends a lot on how well you handle losing.

So the ole bankroll didn't move much this week. I'm down 4 whole dollars.
Current Bankroll: $3354
March Total: $285