Well, another day, another losing session. Again I played fine I thought but hitting no cards and lost a few reasonable sized pots. I'd had another session the other night where things went ok, but still in the midst of a horrible losing run that really (as these things tend to in poker) came right out of nowhere.

Finally got round to updating my spreadsheet tonight (I tend to lose the urge to do so when I'm losing) so the last few sessions may not have been inputted very accurately. Anyhow, found that I'm probably actually even a couple of hundred bucks more down than I'd thought, which I think I might have missed out of my Stars account somewhere.

Somewhat more annoyingly, I'm in the position of having to put money back in to a couple of accounts (I busted my $600 in Ritz Club London a few days back on E200 PLO) which means taking money out of the bank during a time when I'm spending cash on my new apartment. Bah.

Right, well here's the sorry tale:

$1210
30 hours
$40/hr

Pretty shocking really, given that this month I've made about $700 or something from bonuses. Ugh. Perhaps I should take a break for a while, though I do feel like playing through this - feel like I'm playing decent enough poker and tonight (especially) the tables seemed winnable, just a prolonged bad run, I think the worst of 2005 so far. Very disappointing that only a week or two ago I was unstoppably cruising towards $3k for the month with a winrate over $150/hr, and since then I've dropped a ton of cash with barely one big session or a big pot anywhere. Perhaps being too results-orientated is a bad thing, and I suppose I should look on the brightside (that I'm playing not too badly, and that this loss hasn't hurt my confidence too badly), but this really has been a very disappointing period of play.

Any ideas about good ways to break out of this spell? Perhaps I could play some NL or SnGs a bit more often, limit O8, maybe take a break, who knows! All I can say is that I passed $2k within ten days of July and despite that start I'm in the very likely position of missing out on $2k for the month for the first time in 2005. Should have a $120 bonus from stars coming through soon, and perhaps Party or Empire will help me out with some bonus cash before the end of July. I certainly need it!

Monk
xxxxx

Perhaps I shoulda realised when I woke up this morning with a thumping hangover - STAY IN BED

Hi Monkster,
Glad to have bumped into you a few times at the tables this weekend, although I didn't get to see you play any big hands.

BTW, are you using poker tracker Omaha? I see that you are having trouble keeping track of your hourly rate and I think the program would help you a lot. Also, your BB/100 rate is probably more important than your BB/hr to figure out how good you are doing since you are 8-tabling.

JW

Thanks, I'll check it out. However, I don't have enough hands logged in PTO and I play a variety of non-omaha games too so it's not going to be entirely accurate.

Well, ventured back onto the tables tonight and enjoyed my first winning session in a little while, though it wasn't quite the session it might've been after a few leaks and losses towards the end, I only cleared $120 despite winning two big early hands.

My big wins came as I hit a low straight in a multiway pot on the E200 ($300) table at Crypto and nearly doubled through off it, and then when I called a raise with A[c]K[c]K[s]T[h] preflop from the blind in the $200 PLO at Stars, someone in EP made a small re-raise all in, and the flop brought T64 with two clubs. I elected to lead out into four active players, surmising I could maybe get rid of players who had live cards and that the flop was liable to have missed them. Alas, someone had a low wrap and another player had a set of tens, and it ended up all-in on the flop - anyhow, I had good equity with the dead money in there, and hit my club on the turn for a $550 pot.

Alas, things then went very cold, I didn't feel I played well and I was left cursing myself on the very last hand I played as my set of tens inevitably got rivered, but I made the worst crying call in a long time as I pushed in a small amount on the river (board showing K9T after the T hit the river) as a protecting bet and he shoved all in very quickly... I had him solidly on TJQ all the way and thus this was a horrible card for me but still I managed to talk myself into calling off the last $36 into the $120 pot. Dumb, and my read was of course dead right. Guess it's not the worst play ever but still another little mistake, I seem to have been making a lot lately and don't feel that the losing run has done my game any good. Plus, it was annoying to lose a reasonable sized pot after an hour of cold cards on the last hand.

Anyhow, at least it was a winning session. $120 Stars bonus shouldn't be too far away now either, as I feel my way back into things.

$1330
31.5 hours
$42/hr

I'll still be highly disappointed if I can't hit $2k this month, but I guess after about $3k worth of bad beats it's kinda to be expected I'm having a shitty July. Still, cricket tomorrow! Hurrah!

Monk
xxxxx

Just getting worse and worse and worse. Lost another $200 pot to a one outer (which he played horribly), I have top set, he has third set, calls (??? why do they ALWAYS do that with third set? what is the POINT???), 7 on the turn, sayonara. Then some idiot decides that his flush draw and a pair is good enough to re-raise all in after i raised with my wrap and lower flush draw, precisely to remove hands like his. Well, these things happen. And didn't hit any hands or pots anywhere else, really. $430 loss for an hour and a half or so.

Other than bonuses I think I'm a losing player for the last month. Was on a great run and it all went rather sour in June, in July my luck has just been excremental. ANOTHER one outer today, seems I see a <3-outer at least once per session plus other assorted nonsense. I don't think I'm playing too badly but this losing run is obviously affecting my confidence and my game and I think it's time to take an indefinite break and come back to things when I'm feeling less down and indifferent to poker in general. A bit down on the whole about this run because it doesn't feel long since I was destorying the tables and really positive about things, but it's amazing how a poor run can affect your game. Well, looks like I'm going to miss out on my target of winning $2k+ every month in 2005, guess it's not that important as it's only a silly nominal aim, but still annoying to have to admit defeat. Maybe play some more in August but for now I think the best thing for my game is simply not to play for a while and hope I can come back to things strongly in time. Perhaps play some other games on the side but for now the usual PLO/PLO8 grind could do with a break, again

$900
33 hours
$27/hr

Should be noted that I've made about $700 from bonuses in July too!

See y'all in a while

Monk
xxxxx

Hey Monk,
I don't know how long you are planning to take a break, but when you come back, why don't you just nut peddle for a while to build up your confidence? Your hourly rate won't be as great, but your variance will be greatly decreased. I have been nut peddling for the last 2 weeks and made $1000 at the $100 tables on Party and Stars (not including bonuses.) I play about 3 hours a day except on weekends, and my bb rate is about 20bb/100 hands. The most I have ever be down for a day is 2 buy-ins. Compare that to the typical 5-10 buy-ins for people who play "optimally".

JW

---------------AUGUST-----------------------


Well, a solid yet unspectacular start to the month, bolstered (in part) by some of the usual Crypto bonuses.

Had two sessions where I've played one of the WCOOP satellites with some PLO in the background. It's mostly been small pots, tight(ish) tables, though Stars has been kind of late. Picked up $150 tonight in a session where I thought I might've won a bit more; the last account I checked as I rounded up the different sites had about a $100 shortfall I couldn't explain from any apparent losses on the tables! I might even email them because it's totally wierd.

After my break, I am struggling a little bit with the multi-tabling. Today, as I started my session, for about an hour I was zipping from site to site, trying to work out which 7 out of the 15 or so mediocre 100 and 200 PLO games at Stars and Crypto to get into, changing tables... All very harassing. I even lost out on $35 in a PLO8 game by misreading the board because of all the action. I'm sure I'l get back into it, though the pace was easier when I dropped back to 6 tables at the end, might stick with that for a while.

On the whole, as I say, no massive pots to report, though in both sessions I feel I've made mistakes - tonight, passivity on the river in two pots where I could've got more money hurt me, yesterday, I made a couple of "brave" calls and lost a stack to a guy who I had on the right hand, but him unexpectedly leading the turn put me off my read. I felt I played well today, though, but I do worry perhaps I'm not picking up the leaks in my game as well as I might be. I figure I'm perhaps playing a bit too passively when I have a vulnerable hand on the river but where the betting suggests I'm ahead, and checking down; river CRs are uncommon indeed in PLO, and it might just be the last month or so of harsh beats that's caused me to lose a bit of confidence and bet the best hand, although I have the feeling this might be a long-term problem of mine. I also think I'm too gun-shy to raise preflop, and playing a tiny bit too tight in general. I need to open up a bit more (although again, maybe gun-shy from the bad run) because I feel when I actually have to play poker (tonight anyway) in hands I'm making all the right reads and playing fairly well. Tables seem a bit tighter than they were a few months back, so I need to get on the 200s and 400s when loose ones are available because I really gotta get that pesky winrate up.

As for the WCOOP, well, I'll freely admit I threw the satellite away today on a bonehead play, but they're cheap and there's always tomorrow; I won't be losing any sleep over it.

Plenty of bonuses to come this month, I hope Stars and Empire both announce bonuses, soon, though, it's been a while!

$250
5.5 hours played
$45/hr

Monk
xxxxx