Sat down this afternoon to play some HORSE but only one table going and I decided I'd check out the 100NL action. It was decent so I sat at a couple tables. Added a third a bit later. 154 hands for $42. Nothing too exciting.

This evening I played 200NL as I had three consecutive winners at 100NL. I was kinda psyched for it, first time and all. I was up $90 or so fairly quickly off two medium sized pots with big pairs. I'm rollin well and I pick up QQ OTB, 4 limpers and I raise to $14. UTG (TAG) calls and new player in MP calls (I cover both). Flop: T74r
UTG checks and MP open pushes for $58, I call and UTG folds. MP has and hits a K on the turn. That was a $159 swing. I recovered slightly and finished up $13 over 209 hands. I felt pretty comfortable at that level, and plan to play there again tomorrow.

I finished up the night with 300 hands or so at UB 25NL (don't remember exactly; it's all on PT). I was 6-tabling and just running so so. I ended up losing 10c but made several bucks in bonus. I pissed away $8 on a silly hand, which I will not share. I attribute the mistake to a combination of 6-tabling and coming from bet sizes at 200NL.

Lots of sickness at 200NL today. Tables actually looked decent this afternoon so I fired up two tables. Decent start then the sickness began. AK in EP, shortstacker is the only preflop caller. Flop comes . I c-bet and shorty calls. Turn a , so I put shorty in for $20 something and he calls with 55. Guy with monster stack (4 buy-ins or so) who is a TAG limps EP, CO limps, I raise to $12 OTB w/ KK. TAG raises to $40 and I curse up a storm. This is AA about 90% of the time. I call, since I figure if I catch a K I'm doubling up my $240 stack. Flop comes Q high and TAG leads for the pot. I muck. Shortly after I lose half a stack when a guy flops a set on my AA.

Fast forward to this evening. Crazy sick tonight. UTG limps, I raise to $10, BB and UTG call. Flop comes . Checked through (didn't really want to spew here as this flop as almost surely hit one of them and at least the BB has CS tendencies). Turn is a K and UTG leads $20, I call and BB calls. River is something and UTG leads for $30; I call and BB mucks. UTG has

Another pot, EP limps along with MP, I raise OTB to $12; only EP calls. Flop comes KT5 rainbow. I bet $25 into $29 and EP calls. Turn another T. I bet $55 into $79 thinking he may have a pp and just be testing my resolve (this is a bit stupid on my part; why would he do that OOP?). He calls then checks the river as do I. He has Seriously, WTF does a raise mean? On the bright side, I'm thinking this level is very, very beatable. I just need to not get this kind of shit.

So anyway, I lost $106 this afternoon and $36 toniight over 350 hands. Not quite what I'm hoping for winrate wise, but given the luck I'm doing okay. Got one more session in me before dropping back to 100NL. At times I feel very comfortable, while at other times my heart rate goes bezerk. All part of adjusting to new bet sizes.

Played 25NL at UB for 280 hands and picked up $20. I'm playing 5 tables fairly easy. I think I can manage 6, but my tiny 15in. monitor makes it difficult enough to see 5 tables. Found myself at a table full of rocks. I know that comes as a real shock since I was at UB, but there I was and I just started pounding on those guys. Stats were 24/15 and I think my AF was infinity. Won a buy in at that table thanks to a LAG who happened along and decided to stand up to me when I hit a set.

Poker game feels in good shape. If the cards turn around, I think I'm gonna punish some folks.

Just decided to play 25NL at UB this afternoon and ran not too well. Lost $11 in about an hour. Usual bad shit.

Played 188 hands of 200NL this evening and won $199.70. Got some good hands and managed to steal a couple pots. Two hands, one an overpair that ended strangely and the other AK where I'm fairly sure I steal it from a mid pp.

I raise QQ in EP and get one caller. Flop comes out 662 with two hearts. I pot it and he calls. Turn is a 9 non heart. I check he bets $35 into a $63 pot. I raise to $110. He calls leaving himself $30. River is a blank. I put him in and he folds. I wasn't expecting him to fold. I was expecting him to push or fold on the turn, but apparently he had a flush draw and I should have just put him in on the turn.

I raise AKo in EP and get one caller, who is a TAG. I'm thinking he probably has a mid pp. Flop comes out low rags 246. I consider check raising here, but decide to bet/3-bet. So I bet $12 in the $19 pot and he raises me to $34. I 3-bet it to $80 and he runs his timer down and folds. I'm playing on my own TAG image there. He's got me on AK/AQ or a bigger pair, so basically he's asking me a question with that raise, "You have a big pair?" and I say "Yes, I do." I love it when a plan comes together.

Felt exhausted last night and decided sleep would be better than playing my B game at 200NL or any game for that matter. I'm still kind of tired today so hopefully I don't have a cold or something. Quick update: I played for an hour yesterday afternoon at UB and made $6, so just stunning win there. Just finished an hour of 2/4 limit and made $65. Pretty standard except for one guy chasing a damn gutshot to the river and hitting....oh wait, that is standard. Played fairly well. Couple misreads lost me some bets, but okay otherwise. If I feel better tomorrow then I should be able to log an hour or two of more limit. Only one game of 5/10 going this evening so just played 2/4. There are probably 3 tables up by now as the drunks have started making their way home to lose some money. Unfortunately, I need to sleep.

Played two short sessions this evening. The first lasted all of 73 hands at 5/10, but I made $261. That was a result mostly of me getting lucky; multi-way pots with folks draws not hitting and some people having second best hands to pay me off.

Second session was at 2/4 and lasted 112 hands. Made $40 even. Was looking at something more along the lines of $80, but bad luck came along and wiped out half of that. I almost didn't play this second session cause I'm still pretty fatigued for some reason I cannot figure out. I'm off to bed, so hopefully this cold or whatever it is wears off.

Good week, made up for last one.

Current Bankroll: $4196
March: $1127

Well that was a shitty hour. 190 hands and I lost $142.39. Card dead early, when I tried to open up and play a few pots, I got no respect or ran into a big hand; probably the latter. I had recovered to only a smallish loss before dropping $80 on KK vs. AA to a short stack all-in over the top of my EP raise. I had attempted to steal his bb seeral orbits earlier and he
had pushed in forcing me to fold my (I was opening up a bit there). So still a loser of a session even without that bit of bad luck.

My flop seen rate is insanely low, and yet I still get action when I raise. I mean, I would give me action with a pp, since you've gotta figure I have AA or KK when I raise, but still. These guys are calling me with KQo and other shit. As I said previously, I feel pretty good about my chances at this level. I'd like a few more hands, but perhaps this is penitence for my fullhouse from yesterday.

Wasn't really feelin it tonight but I logged on to Bodog to play some NL anyway. Their software was all fucked up and I couldn't get any tables to open. So I decided to play some limit poker at UB. 2 tables of 1/2 one of which was a kill game. Won $11 there. 3 tables of .50/1 one of which was kill. Won $12 on the kill table. Missed every draw and had horrendous flops, turn cards, rivers, on the others and dropped $32. With bonus I was up a massive $3 for the night.

In other news: dissertation writing is progressing along. I've written 20 pages thus far and should have a rough draft finished tomorrow or Thursday. I'll need to make some significant revisions after that, but I'll be very happy to just have it roughed out before the end of the week. Have some hope to be all done by Tuesday afternoon and hand it in to my advisor.

Let's start off with a quotation:
"During the first few years of my poker-playing career, I played almost entirely in home games that were almost entirely loose and reckless. All I had to do to win was play tight, which I had learned how to do. The trouble was, I had also learned how to tilt.

I was a great tilter. I knew all the different kinds. I could do steaming tilt, simmering tilt, too loose tilt, too tight tilt, too aggressive tilt, too passive tilt, playing too high tilt, playing too long tilt, playing too tired tilt, entitlement tilt, annoyed tilt, injustice tilt, frustration tilt, sloppy tilt, revenge tilt, underfunded tilt, overfunded tilt, shame tilt, distracted tilt, scared tilt, envy tilt, this-is-the-worst-pizza-I've-ever-had tilt, I-just-got-showed-a-bluff tilt, and of course, there's the classics: I-gotta-get-even tilt, and I-only-have-so-much-time-to-lose-this-money tilt, also known as demolition tilt.

I'd tilt, and I'd look back on my tiltings, and I started seeing cycles, and then cycles within the cycles, and before long, I started to see my entire poker future as a ceaseless fluctuation between tight and tilt. I figured if I ever went broke at poker, it wouldn't be because my best wasn't good enough to keep me afloat. It'd be because my worst was bad enough to sink me." -- Tommy Angelo

This is probably the roughest day I've had card wise. May be the roughest money-wise as well, but perhaps not. Imagine the worst possible run of cards....well, I can imagine worse than I had, so I guess this is less bad than the worst possible. At any rate I'm running like complete shit. I played for an hour at the limit tables and got my ass handed to me over and over. I played 200NL tonight and had a very nice session going until this hand:
I have in LP and limp in behind some other limpers. Flop comes: Yahtzee! Long story short other limper has A7o and doubles through me for $211. That was something akin to a swift kick to my gut. I walked from the tables shortly thereafter. Lost $85 over 145 hands. Do the math, I had a nice session going.

When something like this happens either you handle it and move on or you just stay away until you do. That's what you are supposed to do. I didn't do either of these. I decided to play more limit poker at UB and ran about as bad as one can run at limit. Dropped $31 playing HU cause this lucksack LAGTARD had to catch every fucking river and he managed to pick up AA twice while I caught top pair. HIts just kept on coming in the FR games. With bonus cushioning the blow, I lost $153 today at .50/1 and 1/2. I would really like to attribute it all to bad beats and bad luck and cold decks, but I can't. A man can only take so much till tilt sets in and its spew time. The only good thing is that I was playing limit poker.

I'm not sure if I'm going to play tomorrow. I'm not sure how I'm going to react to more of this shit. I can form all the best intentions and if I'm cold decked 30 hands in I may go ballistic. Fvck! I'm gonna go cry my self to sleep.

Another difficult day. I kept it together but it was pretty rough. Nice start this afternoon, however. Played 167 hands of 100NL and won $77. Not too exciting. So I was feeling pretty good when I fired up some 2/4 limit tables a bit later. This is easily the worst run of limit I've ever had. I haven't played more than 20K hands of limit, so that isn't saying much, but jesus fucking-a christ. How the hell did I ever win any money playing limit? Had a decent spot at the table tonight. LAGTARD on my left (prefer him on my right, but this is limit so less of a problem). Could not fade his shit all night. In fact no one could. He was up $488 at one point though it was down to $428 when I left. I tried to trap him a couple times, but he had on the flop all three times. Last time I had AA and he called me with ; flop QQK, I bet, he raises, I call. Turn a Q (great card, right?), I check call turn and river--puke.

Rough hand after rough hand. Think I spewed a bit here and there after some of the beats, but never just lost it. At any rate the wee bit of spewage is just a drop in the bucket of tonights debacle. 800 hands and managed to lose $217. Glad I had a good NL session or I'd be real depressed right now. I just kept playing tonight thinkig my horrendous luck would finally run out and I could get back some of what I'd dropped, but I just kept losing more and more. Big pair after big pair cracked, busted draw after busted draw. I'm debating whether to play limit again tomorrow or not. I think I will. As before, its a good test of my mental fortitude to edure another 800 hands of slaughter.

In other news, rough draft of the dissertation chapter is done and I'm in the midst of revisions. Had a bit of a breakthrough today in seeing how I want to formulate some stuff, which means that I can transform it from its current pile-of-shitness to something decent.

Well what a truly horrendous weekend of limit poker. The last 300 hands I recovered a bit, but that was really, really difficult. Somehow, no monkey tilt. I'm not gonna write up all the sick beats, I just got my ass handed to me over and over and over. Here's what it looked like:
2/4 291 hands -$11.40 (not so bad, maybe the run is over?)
2/4 262 hands -$97.75 (shit, still on!)
.50/1 315 hands -$10.10 (c'mon, 50c/1, c'mon!)
5/10 40 hands $137 (I prolly should not have jumped in this game with my confidence at .0000000001 and all, but I did and it worked out real well.....is the run over?)
1/2 103 hands -$14.50
.50/1 235 hands $23 (played 1/2 and two of these table at same time, so finished up for my trouble....so maybe the limit run of hell is over?)

Anything good from this? Yeah, I think so. I was in control the whole way. Bad beats, coolers, did not faze me. I cackled in disbelief at one point, though I guess that was more to prevent me from weeping. I feel okay. The win at 5/10 really helped though.

Lost $111 this week, and I guess it could have been much worse. Had a big win last week, so still up a good amount for March.


Current Bankroll: $4085
March Winnings: $1016

Got off to a good start for the week. Pretty much card dead in the first session until I flopped trip nines in the BB, and some limper had jacks with a K kicker. 9 on the turn made me quads, and a river push got me his $80 stack. Second session was going so so until the following hand put me down a good bit.

MP limps, I raise to $5 OTB w/ AJo, only MP calls. Flop comes: . I pot it (11.50) and MP check-calls. Turn card is a . Pot is $34.50 and I think MP has either a middling pp (most likely) or a flush draw, so I decide to push him off his pp and bet the pot. He calls. River is a brick, and I raise the white flag. Show down: . I quickly make a note of this and in the meantime he adds in the chat box: "I knew you didn't have squat". I remained stoic as always; silently hoping that he would remain at the table.

Few hands later he calls preflop raise with 77, flops a set and bets the pot, pfr reraises and he pushes in and doubles up to a $300 something stack. Which brings us to the final encounter.

I've got around an $86 stack and raise to $4 w/ in MP, and douche calls in the SB.
Flop: ($9)
He checks, I bet $7, he calls.
Turn: ($23)
He bets the pot, I push in, he calls w/ .

I didn't write anything in the chatbox, though numerous things occured to me. He walked from the table a few hands later, and I was not far behind. So finished on a real high note. Vengeance is oh so sweet.

521 hands total made $106.