Well, had a fun weekend in sheffield, although I didn't get down on saturday until about 6 in the evening, it was nice to see my friend and his g/f again after a fair few months, and the band on sunday night went down well and was a lot of fun. I had the slightly worrying experience of driving back up the M1 to leeds still feeling the effects of the previous night's drinking - however, a nice bacon sandwich and a few hours in bed once I got home sorted me out and i've managed to grab two successful poker sessions either side of dinner.

In some ways I wish I'd played a lot more in november, when you're running so good it's great to sit at the tables and watch the money come rolling in. Anyway, I realised I had about 5 hours before my 100 party bonus expired today, so I sat down and fired up some 100 PLO8 tables, whilst playing my usual variety of games at Crypto. I seem to be winning well at party lately (so I really MUST be running good!) and managed to clear the bonus (with less than 2 hours to spare, a bit close for comfort!) and win another $550-odd on the side. I feel I played very well on those tables (which felt a bit looser than usual).

A couple of interesting hands from the session. Hand 1 i got seriously lucky (which almost never seems to happen when I hit quads!) that someone else made a high boat, and no low. I didn't bet the turn because I felt that he might bet it for me and I could CR the (at that point) small pot:

$100 PL Omaha Hi/Lo - Monday, November 28, 15:35:07 EDT 2005
Table Table 68812 (No DP) (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: g8trscott ( $86.55 )
Seat 2: aces4lizard ( $142.63 )
Seat 3: kyttykat ( $14 )
Seat 4: FeloniusMonk ( $111.75 )
Seat 5: DbleGutShot ( $276 )
Seat 6: brownbearak ( $225.80 )
Seat 8: zeno77 ( $220.06 )
Seat 9: tuckerd ( $12.18 )
Seat 10: superdog1 ( $45.47 )
Seat 7: CooLzRuLz ( $100 )
FeloniusMonk posts small blind [$0.50].
>You have options at Table 66040 (No DP) Table!.
DbleGutShot posts big blind [$1].
>You have options at Table 64699 (No DP) Table!.
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to FeloniusMonk [ 9s Ac 9c Ts ]
zeno77 calls [$1].
tuckerd folds.
superdog1 calls [$1].
g8trscott folds.
aces4lizard folds.
kyttykat folds.
FeloniusMonk calls [$0.50].
>You have options at Table 64699 (No DP) Table!.
DbleGutShot checks.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7s, 9d, 9h ]
FeloniusMonk checks.
DbleGutShot checks.
zeno77 bets [$3.80].
superdog1 folds.
>You have options at Table 64699 (No DP) Table!.
>You have options at Table 66040 (No DP) Table!.
FeloniusMonk calls [$3.80].
DbleGutShot folds.
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5h ]
FeloniusMonk checks.
zeno77 checks.
** Dealing River ** [ As ]
FeloniusMonk bets [$11.05].
>You have options at Table 66040 (No DP) Table!.
zeno77 raises [$44.20].
FeloniusMonk is all-In [$95.90]
>You have options at Table 66040 (No DP) Table!.
zeno77 calls [$62.75].
zeno77 shows [ Ks, Ah, Qd, Ad ] a full house, Aces full of nines.
FeloniusMonk shows [ 9s, Ac, 9c, Ts ] four of a kind, nines.
FeloniusMonk wins $222.50 from the main pot with four of a kind, nines.
There was no qualifying low hand.

Loving that. Little bit later I managed to be on the right side of a set-over-set experience:

$100 PL Omaha Hi/Lo - Monday, November 28, 16:42:51 EDT 2005
Table Table 64699 (No DP) (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: Holyman_10 ( $109 )
Seat 3: goliathb ( $97.50 )
Seat 5: SaintHuck ( $70.45 )
Seat 7: FeloniusMonk ( $159.02 )
Seat 8: MotleyFool81 ( $106.45 )
Seat 9: rosie_b ( $28.14 )
Seat 10: bolt123 ( $100 )
Seat 2: theworm606 ( $96.50 )
Seat 4: sonic48 ( $161.42 )
Seat 6: Diderot123 ( $50 )
FeloniusMonk posts small blind [$0.50].
MotleyFool81 posts big blind [$1].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to FeloniusMonk [ Td 9s Jh Jd ]
rosie_b raises [$2].
bolt123 folds.
Holyman_10 folds.
theworm606 calls [$2].
goliathb folds.
bolt123: MIND BOGGLING HOW CARELESS THAT IS
sonic48 calls [$2].
SaintHuck folds.
>You have options at Table 68812 (No DP) Table!.
FeloniusMonk calls [$1.50].
MotleyFool81 folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4s, 8h, Jc ]
FeloniusMonk checks.
>You have options at Table 68812 (No DP) Table!.
rosie_b checks.
theworm606 bets [$8.55].
>You have options at Table 68812 (No DP) Table!.
sonic48 folds.
FeloniusMonk raises [$34.20].
rosie_b folds.
theworm606 is all-In [$85.95]
>You have options at Table 68812 (No DP) Table!.
>You have options at Table 64715 Table!.
FeloniusMonk calls [$60.30].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 9h ]
** Dealing River ** [ 3s ]
FeloniusMonk shows [ Td, 9s, Jh, Jd ] three of a kind, jacks.
theworm606 doesn't show [ 8s, 8c, 9d, 9c ] three of a kind, nines.
FeloniusMonk wins $195 from the main pot with three of a kind, jacks.
There was no qualifying low hand.

And I also caught one opponent on a serious river bluff in the 200PLO8 at crypto (475 pot), with a hand I lead all the way then checked when the river made a draw, although all the way I'd had him on a low draw of some sort so his big river push smelt a bit fishy. It was all the more pleasurable since he'd earlier made a pretty sucky play on a QJT flop, I check-raised him with AKxx, he went to the felt with QQ and hit the sucker J on the turn for a 400 pot.

My other big crypto hand came in a $200PLO game where I got a little lucky in a big preflop 3-way all in battle. I'd annoyingly forgotten that crypto allows reopening of the pot for a raise of any size (even one less than the size of the pot) so it was clear the guy with the obvious AA was clearly trying to get the small stack to move all in and thus get in over the top over the small raise. However, by this stage i'm getting nearly 2-1 on the call and can't really lay down my KQJT. The AA player actually had my flush draw covered, hurting my outs even further, but the fortunate straight took me down a nice big one:


Game #1442848583: Omaha PL ($1/$2) - 2005/11/28 - 15:34:52 (ET)
Table "Dark_Star" Seat 10 is the button.
Seat 2: momomo ($60 in chips)
Seat 3: Skickad ($421 in chips)
Seat 4: dazzy2005 ($293.75 in chips)
Seat 5: Rlcnmw ($210.50 in chips)
Seat 6: Fuatcan ($253.25 in chips)
Seat 7: superpolm ($251 in chips)
Seat 8: muncher ($179.78 in chips)
Seat 9: ME ($186 in chips)
Seat 10: Spook2255 ($197.75 in chips)
momomo: posts big blind $2
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to ME [Qd Ts Jc Kd]
Skickad: calls $2
dazzy2005: calls $2
Rlcnmw: calls $2
Fuatcan: folds
superpolm: folds
muncher: folds
felipe52 joins the table at seat #1
ME: raises to $12
Spook2255: folds
momomo: calls $10
Skickad: folds
dazzy2005: raises to $52
Rlcnmw: folds
Skickad leaves the table
ME: calls $40
momomo: raises to $60 and is all-in
dazzy2005: raises to $236
ME: is all-in $134
Returned uncalled bets $50 to dazzy2005
----- FLOP ----- [Td 9d 8s]
----- TURN ----- [Td 9d 8s][7s]
----- RIVER ----- [Td 9d 8s 7s][Qh]
----- SHOW DOWN -----
dazzy2005: shows [6s 5d Ah Ad] (A Straight, Nine high)
ME: shows [Qd Ts Jc Kd] (A Straight, King high)
momomo: shows [4s Kc 6d Ac] (High Card Ace)
ME collected $252 from Side pot #1
ME collected $181 from Main pot
----- SUMMARY -----
Total pot $436 Main pot $181 Side pot #1 $252 | Rake $3

There were a couple of other reasonabe sized hands played but I didn't keep track of them all. Suffice to say I played pretty well IMO, and didn't lose any big ones (although I did drop most of a buyin on a debatable play at plo100 in my first session - I had KKxx and called a raise from the SB, from a player I had down as solid, so when he bet out on the low-ish flop I made a risky bluff raise, expecting he'd not be able to call. Alas he did and I had to lay down when an ace arrived on the turn.

$810 for today's play was another pretty good session.

Anyways, just got the inter $90 bonus and (if I can get my account funded) the $100 bet365 bonus for the month to clear and i'm done. As it is, it's been a pretty excellent (albeit short) month on the tables and I'm likely going to be spending some of the cash on sorting out my kitchen fairly soon. Right, i'm going to reward myself with an exciting bout of washing up, some hot chocolate and a bath. Exciting stuff, eh?

NOVEMBER NUMBERS:

Winnings: $3180

Hours: 16.5

Winrate: $193/hr

Monk
xxxxx

Well, my luck seems to be holding rather well - I finally motivated myself to play some poker tonight after a very lazy day hanging around the house, but when I finally sat down at Crypto, Party and Prima I found that the tables were pretty hopeless, so even though I spread out across games ranging from E50 PLO8 to £200 PLO, I didn't really feel much like playing. Also, it's been a while, I didn't really feel like my mind was 100% on it and I felt a little behind the pace with the multitabling. Early on I dropped a few bucks chasing a pot when I had nut low and next to nothing for high (I predictably got 3/4ed) but, even though I decided to quit after about 40 minutes, I lucked out in a couple of big pots and won. Again.

First of all, I found AAJ7ss at Prima (100PLO8), re-raised a small stack all in preflop and found another player (who'd seemed to be highly aggressive for the half hour or so I'd been at the table, even with garbage) playing back at me. I had a "feeling" he might not also have AA, putting me ahead, and I already had 20 bucks invested so I shoved the rest of my stack. Predictably, he had AA2 and I lucked out as two jacks hit the board for me to win a 200 pot, which I bumped up to 300 with a couple of smaller coups. At the 100PLO8 at party I took a stab at calling a PFR out of position with AJ34ds, the flop brought J83, I decided he'd probably make a continuation bet with a hand that was losing to my high, indeed he did, I CRed and won it when the turn brought a Q and river a 3. He had A28x for a crappy pair and nut low draw, so it's fair to say I outplayed him, though he had significant equity.

Anyhow, all told I won $325 in my mini session.

DECEMBER FIGURES SO FAR:

Winnings: $985

Hours: 6

Hourly rate: $164/hr

Monk
xxxxx

Merry Christmas, funbags!

I'm back in the saddle again after an agreeable festive period spent in edinburgh, although i've been delayed until today (29th) in my return to the tables because my car has had to go into the garage for repairs (indicators are screwed and there's a few other less important niggles) so i've been staying at my parents the last two nights to allow me to get the damn thing into the garage where my dad works (so I can get a rather tasty discount on the work).

Anyways, a return to the tables tonight, and overall, a pretty fine session I feel. It was quite an up-and-down one, not so much in monetary terms but in my mindset - after a slow but solid start I was in a decent mood and "feeling it" once more after a fairly lucky big pot (I raised PF with AAJ6ss in LP on a E200 PLO table - a very poor LAG re-raised me next to act, which could basically be any four, and an unknown called. I was able to get about 60% of my stack in and, hoping to get it heads up with the LAG (or at least all-in 3 ways with probably the best hand) re-raised. Both called, and the flop came a pretty ugly 2-tone JK7. At this point, though, I'm not backing off, and made a probably marginal/poor push with my bare aces (last $90-odd into a 300-odd pot) which might help if I were to push out (say) a low flush draw and end up heads up against 2 pair or something. As luck would have it, I was actually ahead of both players when they called, but with a ton of draws out I was fortunate to find running hearts to make a backdoor flush and take the E550-odd pot).

However, I began to get a bit adgitated nearly 3 hours in when 3 or 4 hands went the wrong way against a couple of morons and a guy with a decent draw (on one occasion I lost with nut set and nut flush draw against a guy with a 5-out straight draw, about 85% fave on the flop, I also lost with top set against bottom set when he gutshot me, with top set to a guy with a ten-out straight draw and, worst of all, after outplaying an AA-overplayer to get him all in on the flop with just aces when I held a set of 5s, lose to running diamonds for a flush. At least none of the pots were over $150).

Still playing solid poker, though, and in the last hour of the session my luck (deservedly, I felt!) returned and I found two very big hands, the first a simple case of getting in with the best of it in the party 200PLO8, the second a VERY fortunate redraw on what should've been a split in PLO:

***** Hand History for Game 3281529732 *****
$200 PL Omaha Hi/Lo - Thursday, December 29, 18:11:46 EDT 2005
Table Table 66016 (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: cadillactaj ( $69.20 )
Seat 2: adbynot ( $188.35 )
Seat 3: ME ( $192 )
Seat 4: jdoub ( $261 )
Seat 5: VonStyx ( $212.50 )
Seat 6: TeamWorm ( $199 )
Seat 7: FishTanks ( $136.88 )
Seat 8: gurupup ( $106.85 )
Seat 9: dscar ( $200 )
Seat 10: lumpy219 ( $154.36 )
jdoub posts small blind [$1].
VonStyx posts big blind [$2].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to ME [ As 4s 2c 3d ]
>You have options at Table 65493 Table!.
TeamWorm folds.
FishTanks calls [$2].
gurupup calls [$2].
dscar raises [$11].
lumpy219 folds.
cadillactaj folds.
adbynot folds.
ME calls [$11].
jdoub folds.
VonStyx calls [$9].
FishTanks calls [$9].
gurupup folds.
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7s, 3s, 5c ]
VonStyx checks.
FishTanks bets [$44.65].
dscar folds.
ME raises [$178.60].
VonStyx folds.
FishTanks is all-In [$81.23]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4h ]
** Dealing River ** [ 3c ]
ME shows [ As, 4s, 2c, 3d ] a full house, Threes full of fours.
ME shows 5,4,3,2,A for low.
FishTanks doesn't show [ 8h, 4d, 5s, 6s ] a straight, four to eight.
FishTanks doesn't show 7,6,5,4,3 for low.
ME wins $26.36 from side pot #1 with a full house, Threes full of fours.
ME wins Lo ($26.36) from side pot #1 with 5,4,3,2,A.
ME wins $147.88 from the main pot with a full house, Threes full of fours.
ME wins Lo ($147.88) from the main pot with 5,4,3,2,A.

A stonking flop for me. Can anyone say REDRAW? I make that flop all-in all day, and I'll never lose a cent doing it! Shortly after this hand I 3/4ed someone for a full stack with a 2-way nut hand when I checked the flush and was lucky to find my opponent over-pushing A3 with a medium flush.

Game #1221629594: Omaha PL ($1/$2) - 2005/12/29 - 18:28:28 (ET)
Table "Determine" Seat 7 is the button.
Seat 1: SlimOdds ($234.50 in chips)
Seat 2: Ilmkaa ($154.58 in chips)
Seat 3: Kyri17071 ($368 in chips)
Seat 4: miserable ($115.25 in chips)
Seat 5: MasterOne ($295.50 in chips)
Seat 6: Luckyroy ($352.50 in chips)
Seat 7: tatillo ($123 in chips)
Seat 8: ivabigun ($102 in chips)
Seat 9: ME ($482.10 in chips)
Seat 10: munch003 ($224.25 in chips)
ivabigun: posts small blind $1
ME: posts big blind $2
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to ME [5s 3c 2h 8s]
munch003: calls $2
SlimOdds: calls $2
Ilmkaa: calls $2
Kyri17071: calls $2
miserable: folds
MasterOne: calls $2
Luckyroy: folds
tatillo: folds
ivabigun: calls $1
ME: checks
----- FLOP ----- [4d Ah 2d]
ivabigun: checks
ME: bets $14
munch003: folds
SlimOdds: calls $14
Ilmkaa: folds
Kyri17071: folds
MasterOne: folds
ivabigun: folds
----- TURN ----- [4d Ah 2d][6c]
ME: bets $42
SlimOdds: raises to $168
ME: raises to $466.10 and is all-in
SlimOdds: is all-in $50.50
Returned uncalled bets $247.60 to ME
----- RIVER ----- [4d Ah 2d 6c][7s]
----- SHOW DOWN -----
ME: shows [5s 3c 2h 8s] (A Straight, Eight high)
SlimOdds: shows [3h 5c 9h 7d] (A Straight, Seven high)
ME collects $476 from Main pot
----- SUMMARY -----
Total pot $479 Main pot $476 Rake $3
Board [4d Ah 2d 6c 7s]
Seat 1: SlimOdds lost
Seat 2: Ilmkaa folded on the Flop
Seat 3: Kyri17071 folded on the Flop
Seat 4: miserable folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: MasterOne folded on the Flop
Seat 6: Luckyroy folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: tatillo (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: ivabigun (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 9: ME (big blind) showed [5s 3c 2h 8s] and won ($476) with A Straight, Eight high
Seat 10: munch003 folded on the Flop

I bet the flop because it had been slow going on this table and by no means likely anyone would bet it for me. The turn is "safe" (I can let it go if a flush hits; my opponent is fairly tight and not wildly imaginative, but solid), when he re-raises I get the sinking feeling I'm being freerolled but with one to come I gotta call. Neither of us have much of a redraw (just a couple of cards each) but I get a late xmas present on the river.

So, I feel like I've had a fine night. Even though at times the going was slow, I made all the right decisions and didn't get involved in any pots where I wasn't money favourite, or make mistakes by overplaying (which has been creeping into my game lately, an unwelcome (and common) by-product of being on a big rush). I felt I stayed patient and, crucially, although luck deserted me on a few 150-odd pots, in the 400-600 pots my hands held up when I got the money in in front, and I ran out a big winner.

Prior to 2005 I think I only had 2 or maybe 3 days in my life I'd won $1k+ at poker, and I think both were in october last year. In 2005, however, I've done it a good 4 or 5 times now, and it's nice to finally get some luck after a few lean months in the middle of the year. Of the $1035 I won tonight, I must admit $100 is a bonus delivered following my last bet365 session that only turned up in my account recently, but I'm counting it because I hadn't before (and also because I'm probably only a 100 hands or so from releasing $90 at Inter, $40 at Sun and £25 at Littlewoods, so i've done the groundwork for it...). I need to get in one more session before the end of the year to complete my final set of bonuses, and hopefully bet365 will still be honouring my new player bonus which''ll mean a couple more bucks. I'm hoping to get in another good session tomorrow night after I fetch my car, I am driving down to london on saturday to celebrate new year with some old friends, so completing my best ever poker year will be a fine way to celebrate!

DECEMBER:

Hours: 17.5

Winnings: $2475

Winrate: $141/hr

And if I don't check in before then, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Monk
xxxxx

Well well well. Been a while since I've checked in with any sort of entry so I guess I ought to update what's been going on in my life. I think today I'm going to break with tradition and give you a brief rundown of completely unrelated thoughts....

1) I've been enjoying trying out some sports betting sites online this week, having finally gotten round to making some easy money off the plentiful bonuses that are available. In the UK, there are at least 7 or 8 sites that offer a "free bet" of between £10 and £25 for putting in a first deposit and making a first bet of that size. Of course, you can take good advantage of this set-up and here's how:

First, deposit into a couple of sites to get the free bets. Then, find a bet with two outcomes that pays roughly 50:50 (of course there's always an overlay for the bookies...). Now, put your first bet plus the free bet in on one site, and bet on the opposite outcome on the other site. For your £10+£10 on both sites, for the outcome that wins you'll net £40, making a pretty easy 20 quid profit. I've put about £40 into 4 different sites this weekend and placed bets on a meaningless darts match, my minimum income for the £40 will be £65 plus two £10 bets (which i'm yet to place but might actually gamble a bit on something with slightly longer odds) on another site, so I could make something up to £50 or 60 profit for about an hours' effort. Annoyingly, I had problems joining a couple of sites because of their horrible interfaces, though I am intrigued by placing a big bet on at www.betfred.co.uk, who offer up to £100 match on profit for your first bet (there are some stipulations - has to be more than 2 outcomes, and odds have to be evens or worse - so the sensible ploy is to find a horse or football match outcome or something that's about evens, place £100 on it, and, if it comes off, get £300 paid out. Nice).

2) Having friends round is always fun, though when they spill beer over your expensive wool carpet it's less great. Even less so when (whilst drunk) you try to swab it out with a stain remover without testing it first and end up with what looks like a permanently bleached stain on the carpet. As I found to my cost this weekend! Had fun though, despite the fact I've now got a kitchen full of washing up I really can't be bothered with.

3) Climbing Britain's tallest mountain, Ben Nevis, is my latest brainwave, i'm going to try and sort it out so me and a few old friends give it a shot in the summer. In truth, it's walkable (i.e. no climbing equipment needed!) but it does take a good 8 hours. Might be interesting. Best avoid the man-eating haggis...

4) Leader of britain's 3rd political party, Charles Kennedy, has been hounded out of office this week after being forced to admit he was an alcoholic. Now, this may seem a bit harsh (especially when you consider all the politicians of the past who had long and successful careers despite having had problems with the booze at one time or another - Reagan and Churchill come immediately to mind) but these days I guess it's par for the course. Got me thinking about the purpose of the 3rd party, however, in the british system (although they have no chance of forming a government themselves) they serve an important role of making sure neither the tory (right wing) or labour (more left wing) parties don't stray too far from the centre for fear of losing too many votes to the central liberal democrat party - ignoring the fact that lately all three parties have occupied very similar centre ground type policies. They act as a check against either of the parties going too far off the rails, because, although most tory voters wouldn't dream of voting labour, and vice versa, many would consider voting for the liberal democrats if their party strayed too far from the path they wanted. Also, votes for the lib dems aren't a completely wasted, as next election there's a very good chance they could have a say in one or other of the main parties forming a government by means of a coalition. Although there's lots about UK politics that sucks (for instance, the dividing of the parliamentary seats means that the Tory party needs a larger % of the vote to form a majority government than labour do, which is completely unfair, and that athough the lib dems regularly poll more than 20% of the votes, they hold only about 10% of the parliamentary seats), I think having a multi-party system is a positive idea and something that would work well in countries that have two-party systems. I don't think it could ever happen in America however.

5) I'm enjoying work since new year, which has been a strange revelation after getting a bit pissed off with it last year. I'm not entirely sure what's changed, or if I just had a bit of a shift of attitude after being a bit depressed about stuff towards the end of last year, but overall i'm actually a lot more motivated at work, getting a lot more meaningful stuff accomplished, and enjoying the responsibility I have a bit more. As the last 6 months have gone on i've become more and more an important figure in the lab, and have one or two important areas of what we do that I'm now in charge of, which has meant I'm concentrating on things more and, I think, that it's stimulating me a lot more mentally. I've considered looking at other jobs this year (I'd like to move to london, where a lot of my friends live, and where i've always found a lot more stuff to do than here in yorkshire) but we'll see how it goes. For now i'm hopeful i'm out of my self-imposed rut of 2005.

6) Poker has been a bizarre spectacle so far this month. Tables seem so much tighter than they seemed to be in november and december when I was eating them alive, and thus far it's been a bit of a struggle, although amazingly I've still only had one losing session, I've also managed to only win more than $200 once, so it's been a real slow upward crawl. Still, it's better than losing (and to be honest I've got my bonuses to thank for that!). I've recently joined full tilt to take advantage of their nice bonus offer and apparently decent omaha tables (selection at crypto this month has been unusually poor, especially in PLO8 - I really hope that doesn't continue, or my profits will take a real nosedive), and been doing well at Prima, although my Party account seems immovable. I know the players at Party are dreadful a good % of the time but I just seem to be unfortunate at choosing the wrong times, and my big hands don't seem to have been getting paid off there for a while. Oh well. Anyhow, I've won $365 in 14 hours or so, $26 per hour, but at least it's in the black.

Right.... I'm all blogged out!

Well, another frustratingly flat session, just doesn't seem to be anything happening this month. The tables were a bit more sprightly today (there was a good 200PLO8 at Full Tilt and some decent action at crypto) but I didn't make a lot of hands and to be honest I didn't really feel "in control" (though in general I felt my play wasn't too bad). Ended up down, which doesn't worry me too much, but there were a few moments that really had me tearing my hair out, including:

a) One guy bluffing into a pot when someone was all in after 3 people had checked to him. I had to drop bottom two and he flipped up king high to lose to the all in guy's pair of 7s. Nothing I hate more on this EARTH than guys who bluff into a dry pot with someone all in. This guy is not a bad player and did explain his reasoning to me (that for the small outlay it was worth it against a random 4 card hand) but in truth with others left to bet and with a hand that's probably less than 30% equity even against a random four card hand I think it was a pretty horrible play.

b) Got it all in from out of position with aces, and lost my stack to someone else with aces. A 200 downswing on a hand like that hurts; he flopped a flush (we were both single suited). These things happen I guess. Perhaps now the tables seem a lot tighter I should re-evaluate my strategy of trying to get in with aces if i'm OOP. My crypto play (over the years) has become specialised to playing against loose, poor players, and some of those plays really suck against good players, so with the tables a bit tight right now i'm perhaps not in the right mindset to make money on those games.

c) Got all in on the turn with nut straight at PLO8 (no low possible), and the river is predictable - a board pair which also puts out a flush and the pot slides to the boat chaser.

d) Probably the worst of the lot - raised preflop in PLO8 (200 game at full tilt), with A972ds. Flop comes K96 with the nut flush for me. I bet out when it's checked to me (half pot I think), some guy who I thought was a good player check-raised me. Cool. I decide he probably has 2nd nut flush and so I'll call along. Turn comes a damn 9, putting out a possible boat but also giving me trips with the nut flush. He comes out betting again, I'm not really sure where I am but think a) he prob wouldn't CR KK on that flop and b) I don't know if he'd be so quick to bet on a FH (might slowplay). River brings an ace and he bets, I take a deep breath and call and he flips up.... A952. So he's utterly buried on the flop, the only ways he can win any part of this pot is with a couple of perfect runner runners and he gets away with it for half a $300-odd pot.

Nothing too serious but when the deck is a bit cold and luck's not working for you it feels like a real uphill struggle to make any money. Hopefully the tables will stay as fishy as they were at certain moments tonight and my big hands start getting paid soon. I did at least restrict my losses to just $155 as I picked up a couple of decent pots, getting a fortunate turn as I semi-bluffed the nut low draw with an overpair at 100PLO at party, I got two callers, hit top set on the turn and both chasers stayed in, which gave me a $280 pot. Then at Full Tilt I found a preflop raiser betting into me on a flop/turn situation which I didn't quite believe I was beaten both ways, my top two split the high side with his but it turned out my poor low (37 I believe) beat out his 48 (AQ84, he raised that preflop!) and I 3/4ed him.

Anyhow, I've made a simply collosal $210 so far in January (!) so hopefully things look up soon.

Monk

Sickening session, the big loser finally came along and although I don't think it's a collosal one (in fact, until i just threw my 250 stack away with the most moronic play i've made in about 3 years, i don't think i was down very much), i'm just so sick with the way things have gone tonight. A combination of a little bit of bad luck continuing and TWICE making really bad plays to lose big pots when I got my money in with the worst of it (second time around, eugh, i shudder just to think, was about 2 mins ago and I threw my mouse across the room in disgust, which isn't like me).

Maybe trying too hard to make things happen but to be honest this session has really demonstrated to me that whilst i'm a good player, I still have a collosal number of problems and sub-optimal tendencies. With a bit of luck and some decent play tonight could actually have been a good winning session, although it's the first time in a LONG time I can remember having to quit a session right in the middle of a game because i just can't play anymore in this mood, and only have myself to blame really.

I suspect I'm now slightly down for january, maybe 200 or something, and maybe i'm playing too much poker at the moment so i don't think i'll be dropping onto the tables again for a little while. The most disappointing thing about this month is that i'm down simply due to my own moronic play, I really don't know what's happened to be honest. Perhaps I've been a little bit complacent of late.

It's odd that since new year, pretty much everything in life has been on the up, whilst poker has been a real drag. I guess life always balances out somehow! Anyways, i'll figure out my figures before bed, hopefully i'm not too badly down in january...

Oh, and BluesQ.com screwed me out of some money on my betting endeavours with a highly dodgy bit of small print, so i won't be going to bed in a good mood tonight.... Time to fire up deus ex for half an hour and shoot some fuckers I think....