Gloating never gets you anywhere. Played a decent session tonight but a little unlucky, so I lost $66. Happened in two plays. I got very little for the first 80 hands (as in my best hand was 66). So there's an EP raise to $6, MP calls, I have AKo and decide to play it aggressively putting in a raise to $20. Everyone but MP folds and the flop comes out 9 high with two other rags. He checks, I c-bet he mini-raises me and I fold.

Sit down at a table and post a blind in the CO. I have , one additional limper and the blinds. Flop comes and the SB leads $4 into the $8 pot. BB calls, and I call. Turn is a nice . SB leads for $7.50, BB folds, I raise the pot, and SB thinks for a bit and calls. I considered pushing in here, but went for the smaller raise instead. River (suckville) is a 7. SB bets $10; I figure he has some piece of shit J, but call with some tremendous pot odds. He has KJ. Oh well, I gave him a chance to make a mistake and he did, and got lucky. Those two hands put me down, but I came out relatively well, considering.

So last post was short and all. This one will be a bit longer. Hit me this evening that it's just really really silly for me to get bent out of shape when I don't win over a mere 200 hands. That's real small hand wise. I'm playing an hour. It's quite easy to run bad or cold for an hour. So really, I shouldn't sweat one loser, or two; three does suck, but I drop down a level when that happens, so beating up on weaker competition is of some consolation.

I've also been reading some old posts of Mad Genius. I read through Palman's posts a few months ago or so, and now I'm going to read through all of MG's. MG came over to BTP at the start, so basically I'm reading the first posts of the forum, which is kind of cool. A few observations: Man! Fall 2004 was a serious golden age of online poker. I didn't start until May 2005, so a bit later. I think I got in on the good times, but with no roll, I just slaved away in the SNG's. Reading these cash game posts makes me salivate. Perhaps the funniest thread in relation to this is one about table selection. Poster asks what people look for and nearly everyone says they just sit down at an open seat cause there are so many fish it just doesn't matter. Ha, how times have changed.

Another interesting thing is seeing the stakes that everyone was playing back then. MG is only playing 100NL in the first few posts and laments not having the roll for 200NL. Excession was playing 25NL, and K3nt was playing 1c/2c.

Most interesting, however, is seeing the developmental process. As the posts move along people like Kenny and MG are working out the subtle logistics of the game; learning from their mistakes, etc. Pretty good stuff. I should probably have put off this reading until I finished the dissertation chapter, but I didn't. On that note, almost done with it. Thought I could get finished today, but didn't quite make it. Not much more to do, so should finish it off tomorrow.

Managed an hour tonight and lost -$76. Was up a slight bit, but then I picked up TT in EP and raised to $8. One caller in MP. Flop: .
I c-bet 13 and he calls.
Turn card ($45)
I check, he bets $25, I decide to call. I'm WA/WB, but I think I'm ahead of his range.
River: ($95)
I check, he bets $25, I call. I often bet the same amount on the river as the turn when I'm not liking my hand but sort of think I'm ahead; hence I call, and I also have pretty good pot odds. He turns over .

A few hands later, I have AA at a different table and raise, guy calls, BB reraises. I call and MP folds. Flop comes 998, he bets and we go all in. He also has AA and make a big $3.

So that session could have gone better, but I'm still feelin pretty good about my play. We'll see how it goes tomorrow night.

Other news: finished substantive revisions to the chapter, and I think it's at least decent at this point. Going to put it through one more revision tomorrow and be done with it (for a while at least).

Quickest run at 200NL I can have. Lost again tonight, but only $18. Couple bad river cards cost me some nice pots. Still pretty happy with my play; making good laydowns, squeezing out some value bets here and there. Just not runnin well right now. All I can do is play the cards, though.

I'm not sure if I'll have time to play an afternoon session of 100NL tomorrow, so next post may be all limit poker. As opposed to my NL play, I'm not feeling near so confident about limit. I ran bad, no doubt about that, last weekend, but I've got some leaks, and I'm wondering about just how I was runnin before. If I was hot, then that's not so good, since that means that the good winrates were due to luck; entailing that I may only be a slightly above par limit player. I hate thinking this way, but a long run of crap cards does this to you. Twin traps. You run bad but doubt your own play or you play badly but blame the cards. The only way to really get a good sense is if you play a ton of hands. If I had 50K hands of limit and was a winner, I wouldn't doubt myself like this, but I've got a lot less. Let's change the subject.

I am seriously thinking about moving a good portion of my roll over to Cake. Bonus + rakeback over there would be pretty damn nice for my usual limits. I've been playing sans bonus now for a couple months. I'd probably be clearing 150-200 a week on the old 10% bonus at Bodog, but that is no more. Looks like I could get $200 or so at Cake as well. If I could get my confidence back at limit, and play some 5/10 over there, I'd make a hell of a lot more bonus wise and of course through winnings. Drawbacks are many. Apparently there are frequent disconnects (I suppose that might only provide me with fond memories of Ongame). Then there's the whole transferring of money. I have to get money from Bodog to Cake. Deposit options at Cake are epassport (for me). I still haven't signed up with a new wallet, but I probably should just bite the damn bullet and do so. Epassport, however, does not do business with Bodog because of teh whole sportsbook stuff. So, I gotta WU that shit off Bodog, then get it to my bankaccount, then load to Epassport with all it's fees, then get it to Cake. I hate paying fees. Shit! I'm angry thinking about all the hoops to make this happen. I'll still probably do it, but I don't like it.

Well, it's official....I'm limit poker's bitch. First pot I play of the night. 5/10 game one calling station limper I raise only he calls. I have AA flop J66r, I bet he calls; turn a 4, I bet he calls, river a 4 I bet he check-raises. Crappola, but I call. He has 54o. Basically the night continued in that vein though I suffered nothing near as horrible as that for the remainder. My play was okay. I'd say it was my B+ game. I screwed up a couple times but not terrible. Set over set, flush over flush; what am I gonna do? Bleh. I'm depressed. Stats on the day:
50c/1 165 hands -$24
1/2 92 hands $7
2/4 125 hands -$77.50
5/10 99 hands -$92

So, yeah, suckville. Well, I gotta move on. Shit happens. Tomorrow starts a new week and a new month. Lost more money this week, which does not please me, but up for the month, so long term okay. Gotta keep focused on the long term.

Current Bankroll: $3900
March Total: $833

I played a short session (40 minutes or so this afternoon) then an evening session of an hour and a half or so. Tiny win this afternoon $6.25. Lost $17.75 this evening. Not picking up a whole lot. 864 hands, I've had AA once, KK zero; QQ once. So just hot as all hell. I take it back, AA also in the SB and won the BB, so twice. Sigh. I flopped two pair tonight and got a horrible turn card making four to a straight and the flush. Lost about $40 on that hand. Basically just can't get much going.

Technically, I had a wining session, so I haven't lost three in a row, but it was a short session. I'm not feelin to good about my game, though I wouldn't take back any of my plays tonight, so I dunno. I'm gonna put a decision off until I sit down to play tomorrow. May stay at 100NL, may drop to 50NL

I played 100NL tonight and had something decent going until I pick up AA. One limper in the pot, I raise to $5 and guy on my right raises to $11, folds to me, I make it $37 and he calls. Flop comes
I open push and he thinks for a bit and calls with JJ. Turn is the and I lose $115 on that hand.

Shortly after, however, I pick up AA on a different table. Guy to my right raises to $3.50 and I pop to $12, which he calls. Flop comes A67 rainbow. He bets $15 into me and I decide to go with the ole mini raise. He calls. Turn is a 7 and he open pushes with JJ. I won about $100 on that hand, so almost made up for the earlier one.

Finished the night up $34.50 over 236 hands. I made a couple mistakes tonight by not playing aggressively enough in spots where I needed to be. Otherwise I did okay. Still not feelin to great about my play, so I'll reserve judgment until tomorrow.

I'm trying to think of something positive, but I can't. I'd rather not bore the reader with me just whining about bad beats and cold decks and such, so I'll just say this. About 300 hands cost me $136. I'm not feelin too good. I can't seem to do much of anything right. I'm going to play one more session tomorrow afternoon of 100NL and decide on dropping down to 50NL based on my play and state of mind.

Although the last two weekends have been sucktastic for limit, I'm going to give it one more go this weekend. If limit blows ass as much as I'm thinking it will, I may just take next week off. I'm thinking almost entirely negatively at the tables right now, which is not good. The problem, however, is that I continue to run into coolers, so all my negative thinking and dreading the worst has saved me some money. Of course, it's also cost me some winnings, so bleh.

I'm posting a bit early today 'cuz I need to vent. 4th hand of the session. I'm in the SB and complete w/ behind 3 limpers. BB checks and the flop is:
I lead for $4 and get one caller, an EP limper.
Turn: ($13)
I bet $7, trying to string a pp along, he calls
River ($27)
I check, now giving him a chance to bluff at it or try to keep it cheap if he has a bigger J. He bets $20, I call; he has 66 In retrospect, I wish I had bet this river for $14 or so, as I could have folded to a raise and saved $6.

Much later in the session, I have caught very little. I call a $3 raise in LP w/ 33 and flop a set on a board. SB, who also called, checks, pfr bets $10 (pot) I raise to $23 and SB folds and pfr pushes in. I happily call, but lo, he has 44, but somehow, someway he misses the ten outer and I win almost a buy-in. (this is a moment of goodness I thought I would share)

I'm in the BB w/ KK. UTG limps, MP player on short stack raises to $4.50, folds to me and I make it $14, UTG and MP both call. Pot is $42, UTG has $30 somethign left and MP has ~$27. Flop comes low rags, I pot it, they both call all-in. UTG has AA, MP 99 and the aces hold up.

Next hand, I'm in the SB with AA, having a stack ~$45. Folds to the hijack seat who raises to $4.50, I make it $15 and he raises me. I push in he calls with . Flop is three diamonds (I do not have the Ad) turn a diamond and its stackville.

I quit shortly after this. Basically, I'm winning when I catch a big hand and someone decides to push in their chips on a draw or a bluff. I lose with a big hand, that is not quite good enough cause a damn cooler is in the other guy's hand. This sucks.
168 hands -$36.75
I need a beer.

Stop the presses! I booked a winner. 268 hands of 50c/1 for $17.95 and 197 hands of 1/2 for $14.25. Yes, impressive winnings I know. Ignore the dollar amounts and behold the wonderousness of a win. I haven't been this happy about winning slightly over $32 in a long time. I started off the night with some super-sick hands and then slowly but surely recovered and ended up in the black. Well, I'm tired, so off to bed. We'll see how tomorrow goes. It's my son's birthday party tomorrow and apparently there will be a ton of three year olds running around my house tomorrow....awesome.