Alright, a frustrating session this afternoon. I know I shouldn't worry about it (and I'm pretty sure it'll happen eventually), but I want so badly to get back into the "plus" category on total money won. I'm grinding out the first hour just to stay really close to even. I'm getting a few $2-3 pots here and there, but have them blinded away because I can't catch a playable hand in between them. Then I finally win a nice pot of $11.65 and I was already up a couple bucks so for a bit there I was actually a winning player again (since I started the $25 tables). Then it happens. I have AA, my opponent has KK and we both see a queen high flop. I get him to go all-in (he was only about half a buyin when we started the hand) and a king comes on the river. Very frustrating considering he only had two cards to catch it rather than the five he would've had if I got him to go all-in preflop. So now I'm below where I started at for the day. I ended up losing a few bucks more, but I'm pretty sure I never went on tilt. I actually am pretty happy with play today. I just wish it didn't result in a net loss, but that's poker.

As promised I'll do my weekly update in my next post. Since I've only been playing a week my total stats that I list below is also my weekly stats so I won't bother listing them again. But I will do a play-by-play of worst losses in the next post, and you'll see that I obviously am very hard to embarrass when I show some of them to you.



Today
115 hands, 83 minutes played
Amount Won or Lost: $3.20 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 12.17%
PFR: 6.96%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 2.75
WTSD: 26.67%
W$SD: 50%
PTBB/100: (5.57)


Total Stats
812 hands
Amount Won or Lost: $16.30 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 15.02%
PFR: 4.56%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 2.56
WTSD: 18.44%
W$SD: 57.69%
PTBB/100: (4.01)


The Road to $1500
Total Bankroll: $483.70
Left to go: $1016.30

Okay, on to the worst losses of the week. Looking at my losses I see I have 4 hands of a $13 loss or more and after that my biggest loss is $4.60, so I'll just list the 4 that I lost a sizable amount on. As before, I'll reserve my own comments until the hand is played out in full so I'm not junking it up.

Loss: 13.45
9 Players
I'm UTG with [Ac] ($39.50)
I raise to $1. Folded around to CO ($13.45), who raises to $2. Folded to me, I call. Pot: $4.25
Flop: [Qc][2c]
I check, CO bets $3. I CR to $7. CO raises all-in with last $8.45. I call. Pot: $27.25
Turn: [Qc][2c][6c]
River: [Qc][2c][6c][Kh]
CO shows [Kc], a set of kings and wins the pot.

This was an aggressive table, so I was pretty sure my PFR was going to be tested here. I didn't want to give away a huge amount of information with a really large raise. Plus I'd been playing very tight so they might've noticed that. That's the same reason I just called his raise preflop. The queen was a bit scary on the flop, but if he had QQ good for him. He'd been pretty aggressive preflop so he could've had any high PP as far as I knew, even down to TT. I was hoping he had what he did, a KK. All around I'm okay with this hand. I was kind of glad I didn't lose it to a full stack. That might've really depressed me.

Let me preface these remaining hands by saying that they happened before I got HoH, although I can't promise they won't happen again.


Loss: $13.50
9 Players
I'm UTG+1 with [Qh] ($25)
UTG folds, I call. Folded to MP2 ($24.80), who raises to $1. Folded to me. I call. Pot: $2.35.
Flop: [Kc][Qs]
I check. MP2 bets $2. I CR to $5. MP2 calls. Pot: $12.35
Turn: [Kc][Qs][4h]
I bet $7.50. MP2 reraises all-in with final $18.80. I fold.


I think I mentioned this hand somewhere in my journal. I didn't mind my CR, because he may have been sitting on a medium pp (up to JJ) and I wanted to make sure I was beat. The odd part was that, after finding out I probably was beat I go ahead and make a largish bet on the turn! Wish I could tell you what I was thinking there. It was a weak bet as it was, so I certainly wasn't trying to steal it there. I think I maybe just got it into my head that he was drawing for spades, even though I can't imagine what preflop hand he would've raised that would make that feasible. At least one where I wasn't beat outright anyways.


Loss: $23.55
9 players
I'm UTG+2 with [9d] ($25.70)
2 folds, I call. MP1 calls ($19.30), MP2 posted OOP and checks, CO posted OOP and checks, button calls ($23.55), SB folds and BB checks. 6 players in the pot. Pot: $1.60.
Flop: [Kh][2c]
BB checks, I bet $1.25. MP1 raises it to $2.50. MP2 and CO fold. Button reraises to $3.75. BB folds. I reraise to $15.35. MP1 goes all-in with $16.55. Button does the same with $19.55. I have them covered and call. Pot: $64.25
Turn: [Kh][2c][Ac]
River: [Kh][2c][Ac][Qd]
MP1 shows [As], wins the main pot of $55.85 with a set of aces.
Button shows [9h] and wins side pot of $8.40 with a set of nines.


Well the first thought is probably "You shouldn't've been in there in the first place!" and I couldn't agree more. I had a mediocre hand and bad position. I probably deserved to lose most of my money coming in like I did. I sure couldn't expect someone to limp in with AA though, but that's beside the point. That AA got lucky as hell that his dumb play ended up getting paid off. The only one to play this hand good was the button and it's a shame to me that he didn't end up winning it all. As for postflop, this is just one of those situations where my brain shuts down and I go to "get as much as I can" mode without a single other thought. After my big reraise was called I came to my senses and was pretty sure I was beat, but I felt I had to make that last call since the pot was huge. I just realized I was drawing completely dead on that hand. *L* Oh well, I deserved to lose that money anyways.

The hand below happened the same day, about 30 hands before the one above. I can't say that's why I made such a dumb play with K9 above, but I may have been trying to recoup most of my losses from the following hand in one big play.


Loss: $24.55
9 Players
I'm UTG+2 with [Kc] ($24.55)
UTG folds, UTG+1 calls. I raise to $1.50. Two folds, CO calls ($25.95). Folds to UTG+1 who calls. Pot: $4.85.
Flop: [3h][6d]
I make a CB bet of the pot ($4.85). CO calls, UTG+1 folds. Pot: $14.85.
Turn: [3h][6d][Ah]
I make a pot bet of $14.55. CO goes all-in with $19.60. I call. Pot: $50.95
River: [3h][6d][Ah][4s]
CO shows [6s] and wins $48.45 with a set of sixes.

This is another example of me going a little crazy with TPTK. I'm okay with my CB, although I probably didn't need to make it the full pot. Although that way it looked like I did have a hand and was trying to make a flush drawer pay a big price to do so. The problem came on the turn when I actually caught a hand and lost my mind at the same time (never a good combination). My bet was so big (and if CO had been drawing to the flush he would've hit there!) that the only thing that would've called me with was something that beat me. My bet really made no sense at all. If I made it so big to chase him out, why do I do it after the flush card hits?!

I wish I could say that I learned my lesson with this hand, but as you already know from the K9 hand above, I didn't. I'm learning a little more about pot control from HoH, so that maybe I don't get into these fixes quite so often.

Anyways, there they are, laugh all you want. I can't hear you.

I'm feeling a little more confident in my playing so I played a two table session tonight. I want to post this now rather than tack it on to next week's stats (I like to start my new week on Sundays). Not that there's much to report. A 65 cent loss. That's the frustrating thing I find about playing two tables. I felt that if I just played the one I won $10.35 on I'd be much better off. But then I think that if I'd only played the other one I'd be looking at an $11 loss. I guess it helped me get some bonus money so it wasn't completely a waste of time. The table I lost at I just couldn't seem to hit anything and I don't remember a single CB working there.

Again I felt I played pretty good. No big mistakes, no paying people off. I was aggressive but also cautious when I flopped bottom two pair. I got a decent pot with very little risk. My sets have turned around. I hit a few of them tonight. Unfortunately I couldn't get anyone to stay in with me on any of them. *sigh* My biggest pot win was $5.25 and that wasn't even a set. I just hit them at the wrong time. The tables as a whole were pretty loose and aggressive.

So anyways, even though there's very little change, here are my....



Today
183 hands, 88 minutes at one table, 75 on the other
Amount Won or Lost: $0.65 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 14.21%
PFR: 4.92%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 3.57
WTSD: 20.00%
W$SD: 42.86%
PTBB/100: (0.71)


Total Stats
995 hands
Amount Won or Lost: $16.95 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 14.87%
PFR: 4.62%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 2.76
WTSD: 18.75%
W$SD: 54.55%
PTBB/100: (3.41)


The Road to $1500
Total Bankroll: $483.05
Left to go: $1016.95

Sounds like you're in a bit of a downswing too Mr. Kramer - I hope you pull out of it soon. Sounds like you've got things under control. By the way, I've been watching your play at the tables, and it's sound, so keep at it.

Thanks RR. I didn't know I had an audience. On one hand it feels like I'm never going to have a really good day again. But then I try to remind myself that it only has been about a week since I started this and everyone has blah weeks now and then (sometimes much more than one week). I think it seems longer to me because of the problems I had at PR the week or so prior to starting this new journal. Mostly I can't bitch because I probably would be winning if I hadn't made a few monumental mistakes...so I can't blame the cards or bad luck. I guess until I hit that really good day(s) I'll just have to keep plugging along and hoping I don't make too many mistakes in the meantime.

You said it, everyone has blah weeks, just keep at it and you'll be back to winning at your normal rate in no time

First of all, thanks for the support Godlike!

Well I just had a bizarre session. I can't remember exactly the specifics but for the first 55 minutes or so I was breaking even or a couple dollars up. Then in the space of about 5 minutes at both tables I lose pretty good pots. The first was when I limped in in a family pot with 56s in the CO, Q55 came up and ended up losing a decent sized pot to Q5s. Can't blame him for being in there. He was OTB with 4 limpers in front. Down at the other table, meanwhile, I limp with 44, call a raise. Flop comes 356. BB bet out (and he was not the preflop raiser), I throw out a large, ill-timed, semi-bluff thinking that hand must've missed both (BB had been very aggressive postflop, but also seemed like a good player and able to lay cards down). BB called. I was done with the hand after that, and good thing too as we both checked it down and he showed 55. He wasn't going anywhere.

Anyways, all of a sudden after it looked like I had good news (mediocre news anyways) to report tonight I look and see I'm down some $14. I was able to take it in stride though but since it was nearing the end of my session I decide to play two more orbits. That's when I catch fire. First I had TT and raised it up PF, get a caller or two, flop comes QQx. I CB, get called by one. We both check the turn and I get a ten on the river to beat his AQ and win his $11 stack. At the other table I win another $10 in three different hands in more mundane ways in these last two orbits.

So anyways, after this rollercoaster ended, I managed to have some good news after all. I won about $6.30 altogether tonight and am thrilled to be walking away with it.

Well it's getting late so I'll go ahead and post my stats and quit rambling.



Today
172 hands, 69 minutes on one table, 67 on the other
Amount Won or Lost: $6.30 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 16.86%
PFR: 5.23%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 6.25
WTSD: 19.51%
W$SD: 50.00%
PTBB/100: 7.33


Total Stats
1,167 hands
Amount Won or Lost: $10.65 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 15.17%
PFR: 4.71%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 3.13
WTSD: 18.89%
W$SD: 53.66%
PTBB/100: (1.83)


The Road to $1500
Total Bankroll: $489.35
Left to go: $1010.65

My frustration is finally boiling over. I'm going to take my own advice that I gave Runner and take a good amount of time off from playing. I'm doing this for only one reason. I'm finding that this is affecting my play at the tables and I want to nip it in the bud before I lose any more money right now.

I've just so frustrated of the flops that are missing me, and the mistakes I'm making out of that frustration.

I just looked at my current misc. stats page. This is through 1345 hands.

16 two pair (4 from using both cards, 7 when I had pp, 4 using one card and 1 two pair on the board)
3 three of a kinds (1 set, 1 using one of my cards and 1 three of a kind on the board).
1 straight (happened when I had KK and the board made a straight)
1 flush (again, completely the board)
4 full houses (1 I caught on the river that I mentioned in the above post, 1 I made with A4s using both cards that I made a grand total of $3.40 on, and the 2 others used one of my cards each)


Looking back at my original PT results (pre-$25 tables) through a similar number of hands.

7 two pairs (4 using both cards, 2 when I had pp and 1 two pair on the board)
5 three of a kinds (4 flopped sets, 1 three of a kind on the board)
3 straights (2 using both cards, 1 using one)
3 flushes (2 using both cards, 1 using one card from AA)
5 full houses (4 using a flopped set, 1 using pp with 3 of a kind of board)

Difference in money won between the two: $274 for the latter to $68 for the former (for just the hands listed above). Total money won, respectively, was $155 and ($44). This, even though my original W$SD was hovering around 41%.

I don't know, maybe this isn't unusual and I'm thinking I was very lucky originally (and with only 1300 hands there's bound to be variances between the two), but I'm not dealing with it very well right now. I'm highly suspicious that I'm playing too tight in games preflop and not giving myself a chance to get some really nice hands. I remember when I was a winning player (oh those were the days), that I had a VP$IP between 19 and 22 most of the time (was at 21.45% through the hands listed above). Now I'm a rock and I'm acting like a rock when I actually catch a good hand; I go overboard with it because I've waited so long for it.
I think my tightness has almost everything to do with the fact that I'm not winning. If I was up a couple hundred dollars at this point I don't think I'd give much thought to taking a gamble if I thought I could win some money. Right now I feel like I'm playing not to lose rather than playing to win. I'm afraid of my bankroll slipping down even farther below its original mark so I'm tightening up to avoid most of the big risk/big reward plays (although I still almost always take a chance with any PP I'm dealt unless I'm sandwiched between two raises; obviously those plays haven't paid off though).

Tonight I played an hour, not hitting anything of course, but trying to pick up pots here and there. I was down about $2.50 through about 50 minutes when the bad one hit me. I had JJ in the SB. It was raised by late position, I called (probably should've bet here), and it was reraised by the BB. The original raiser called and I finally lost my mind. I reraised it big, only BB calls. Flop comes out with an ace. I make a CB but the pot's so big that I end up basically committing myself (psychologically at any rate) on the CB alone. He calls of course and I put in my last $10 out of complete frustration after the turn, knowing I have 0% chance to win.

To make matter worse the guy that won my money was not a good player, but I turned into an even worse player on that hand. He didn't think for a second that I might've had AK when he kept calling with AQ (that's not what made him "not a good player", but other stuff I'd observed about him throughout the game...mainly his 72% VP$IP), but I give him credit for kicking my ass. It was me who kept throwing over money to a guy who is obviously very loose and couldn't be bluffed.

So I need a break. I may be back in a couple days or a couple weeks, I just don't know right now. I will be back though. I know it'll turn around eventually and I do want to be there when it happens. But because it's affecting my play right now (or I'm allowing it to affect my play at any rate) I think a fresh start is probably the best thing for me right now. I may take the break as an opportunity to transfer my money to another site. I think maybe I need a break from UB as well. I've yet to play at Party Poker so I may give that a shot. I've made about $20 in bonuses from UB so I'll probably just go ahead and add that to my total bankroll when I get back to playing.



Today
178 hands, 77 minutes on one table, 72 on the other
Amount Won or Lost: $33.85 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 15.17%
PFR: 5.62%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 6.00
WTSD: 9.38%
W$SD: 33.33%
PTBB/100: (38.03)


Total Stats
1,345 hands
Amount Won or Lost: $44.50 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 15.17%
PFR: 4.83%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 3.34
WTSD: 17.67%
W$SD: 52.27%
PTBB/100: (6.62)


The Road to $1500
Total Bankroll: $455.50
Left to go: $1044.50

I think and you and I, in terms of being able to take losses in stride, are very much alike. We both know that we can run over the $25 games and we get frustrated easily when it doesn't happen, let alone over more than a couple of sessions. You and I will be much more refined when we deal with it.

My recent losses have induced me to make some bad plays as well, it's easy to do, I hear you. I think sometimes everyone forgets the gambiling definition of "long run".

A break may not be a bad idea - regarding the ring games at Party, I've played them before, as high as $200, and they're not very good (players, that is). They are surely looser than UB, but not as manical as some people think. I tried LAGGING it up a few times during me week "off", and absolutley mowed the games over - sometimes without any regards to cards whatsoever. This was one table, and I learned A TON about reading hands and flops and knowing when my opponent had nothing. I'm not suggessting you begin being a LAG over at UB, but I found it great practice and will surely be useful for $400+ levels and may spend a lot of time practicing like this before I take the step away from "grinder's stakes" someday.

I hear you RR. The thought crossed my mind that learning to handle these frustrations may be like kicking the habit of smoking. Most people need to go through it 4 or 5 times before they succeed. Hopefully with every frustrating period I go through in poker I get a little bit better at handling it (I'm certainly better than I was at the beginning; then a really bad session would set me off for days at a time). It's just going to take years of these experiences before I become emotionally prepared to lose for an extended period of time. I mean I know mentally already that things will turn around (as I mentioned to you, it always has), but knowing something and fighting with your emotions at the same time doesn't make it an easy go. Only experience of it happening again and again will emotionally prepare me for it.

I've calmed down somewhat since I wrote my last post (I wrote it last night but wasn't able to get BTP to work). That always helps to get me thinking objectively again. I still think when I get back to playing I'm going to try a much looser approach to the game. Not crazy loose or LAG just yet, but just taking more chances than I have been and not feel like I have to have AA, KK or AK to come in in early position or a minimum of AK or PP to call a raise in late position. I'm going to play more hands postflop because I feel like I'm not getting to SD as often as I should (where the big money is usually won). I feel like I can outplay most people postflop at this level (although I may be deluding myself *L*), and I'm not taking advantage of it because I'm so worried about losing to a moster hand in a big pot or someone drawing out on me that I tend to try to get them out as quickly as possible. My variance will be much larger, but I'm tired of playing low variance and not being able to win a decent sized pot except maybe one in 4-5 sessions.

Finally I need to try to convince myself that I'm still a winning player (I'm playing mostly with my winnings anyways). And that I shouldn't give a damn if my BR is over $500 or under it, I should play the same way no matter what and give myself a chance to win some big pots like I did in the beginning. I'll lose big pots as well, but right now I'm losing the big pots without winning hardly any big ones. My biggest win, no surprise, came from my sole set that I've gotten. I made $24.30. After that my biggest win is $11.65. On the flip side I now have 3 losses more than $23 and 2 in the $13 range. If that keeps up, in the long run it's going to lead to losing my BR completely. So I need to make some sort of change before I allow that to happen.

Anyways, I am going to try a different site. I'd already withdrawn my BR from UB last night when I was still very pissed. When it gets to Neteller I'll decide what to do with it. I may even try PR again, only this time at the $25 tables and not the $50's where I didn't have much luck before. I may split it up between PR and Party and alternate playing each site every day and see how it goes. I think it'll be much closer to the "couple days" than "couple weeks" before I come back though. I'm already itching to try my new looser strategy to see what happens.

Wow, I love how quick Neteller works; shoulda got it a year ago.

Anyways, my funds have been tranferred to Neteller ($475). In turn I took $235 of it and deposited it in Poker Room and the last $240 I transferred to Party. I'll be alternating days on each site.

For the sake of simplicity in figuring out what I'm winning or losing at each site I'm going to start a new PT database and add and subtract my total wins and losses from the money I have in each account. So I'm not going to start at $500 anymore; I consider $475 to be my "starting bankroll". This means that as a practical measure right now, I've won or lost absolutely no money and I'll just go from there.

Also I think I am going to change this to a weekly journal rather than a daily journal. I do too much bitching and bellyaching when I do a daily journal and any good info that someone can take out of this journal is probably getting lost. And to be honest, it doesn't make me feel any better by talking about losses afterwards; quite the contrary. I still reserve the right to come here and bitch and moan at any time I want, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum.

So from now on my only real informative entry will probably occur mostly on Saturdays or Sunday afternoon at the latest. I consider Sunday to be the start of my week so I'll want to get my weekly report posted before I play any that day so I'm not mucking up my weekly stats or wins/losses. There I'll include my weekly and total stats and wins (or losses), and my march (or lack thereof in the worst case scenerio) towards $1500. I'll also be posting my worst losses of the week as usual. It'd be nice one time if every one of those losses were all bad beats or legitimate losses (smaller set running into a larger set, that sort of thing)...that's my ultimate goal right now.

I guess that's it for now. I may or may not get back to playing tomorrow, but I'm sure I'll be playing Thursday at the latest.

I won't make a habit of this but I wanted to talk about my first day back.

Wow, for the moment I love PokerRoom again! I played at 3 different tables, one for 70 minutes, one for 10 minutes (until it broke up) and one for 51 minutes and I made $16 or more on each table. My total win for the day was $65.25.

The funny thing is, even though I started out playing looser, when it was all said and done, my cumulative VP$IP for the day was 14.41. I know I had about 21.00 through 15 minutes or so but the tables got a little more aggressive after that (they were very, very passive in the beginning) so I guess I instictively tightened up without even realizing it. Also, and I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, it wasn't until about the 50 minute mark before I realized I wasn't playing no-limit; I was playing pot-limit. *L* At one time I was curious why I couldn't bet more than $1 preflop with my KK. Turned out it didn't matter when the board was KJJ and somebody lost their stack to me with AJ (they even got an ace on the river, probably really pissing them off). I may just keep trying pot-limit for awhile after this and see if my luck continues there. I'm not crazy about paying .25/.25 for both blinds (I liked UB's .10/.25), but when the table's passive I guess it's not that big of a deal.

I think I played pretty well today. I was able to take myself out of a hand where I had top two pair and my raise on the turn was min-raised. I may have been ahead, but I doubt it and he was deep stacked so I could've lost my entire stack at that point. I also threw away AK preflop after I raised it and someone raised it very big (almost $4.50) behind me (he told me he had AA but who knows?). On the other hand when I had A8 and the flop came up A8x I was able to milk out a lot of money from a calling station all the way to the river instead of trying to shut him out on the flop altogether (which has been my usual play). A river 8 helped and he showed it down with A7, a single pair.

Anyways, just wanted to share my good fortune today, because I haven't gotten that many chances lately to do that.

I've decided to make Friday my weekly update day and start each new week on Saturday. No real reason for this other than it'll be here for those bored enough to read it during the weekend. If I happen to play on Fridays after I post these (but I often take Fridays off) I'll tack it onto next week's stats rather than add another entry or edit this one.

So getting down to it, my week was short, only two days of playing since I made the switch away from UB. So there won't be a whole lot to report. I've played once at PokerRoom and once at Party. I'll keep the stats seperate for each, but also make a "total stats" listing below them. I think it's important that I keep track of how I'm doing at each site though, as it will affect my decision whether to stay at a site or move on and try another. I'll try to give each site enough time and not be too rash about moving though.

Here's my results for the week so far:



249 hands, 294 minutes played (all tables combined)
Amount Won or Lost: $72.45 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 16.87%
PFR: 4.42%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 7.29
WTSD: 13.85%
W$SD: 88.89%
PTBB/100: 58.19




296 hands, 289 minutes played (all tables combined)
Amount Won or Lost: $18.16 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 17.57%
PFR: 4.39%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 4.50
WTSD: 19.05%
W$SD: 41.67%
PTBB/100: 12.27


545 hands, 583 minutes played (all tables combined)
Amount Won or Lost: $90.61 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 17.25%
PFR: 4.40%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 5.65
WTSD: 16.41%
W$SD: 61.90%
PTBB/100: 33.25

The Road to $1500
Original Bankroll: $475
Total Bankroll: $565.61
Left to go: $934.39

Next week I guess I'll have to include my from-the-beginning stats for each of these things as well as my weekly stats for each. As they are both the same this time I won't repeat 'em.

In summary a pretty good couple of days. I'd heard stories about Party but wasn't sure I completely believed them until my 6x BB raise got called by 4 people. But after the flop they tended to turn much tighter and I didn't see a whole lot of crazy action. They were actually much wilder at PR postflop the day I played there (and tighter preflop). I'm sure it'll take a few more weeks before I see if this is the actual pattern or not.

I really only had one big loss this week. The others were all $5.75 or less, so I won't bother with those. I'll used my cutoff from now on at $7.50 or greater loss. Anything less and I won't bother to post it.

Loss: $15
10 Players
I'm in BB with [Ks] ($28.45)
2 folds. UTG+2 bets $1 ($19.95). Folded to me. I call. Pot: $2.10
Flop: [7h][9h]
I check. UTG+2 bets $1. I CR to $3. UTG+2 calls. Pot: $8.10
Turn: [7h][9h][2c]
I bet $5. UTG+2 calls. Pot: $18.10
River: [7h][9h][2c][5h]
I check. UTG+2 bets $6. I call.
UTG+2 shows [Qc] for an Ace high flush and wins the pot.

First off, UTG+2 stats: 50.00% VP$IP and 8.33% PFR. I didn't raise preflop because I was the last to act and it seemed a better idea at the time to try and trap him. I still believe it was the right play in that situation. After the 3 flush cards came out I had to figure out where I stood. I figured a CR was as good a way as any to find out. If he had the flush I believe he would've came over the top. I'd already seem him do it before. But he just called and at that point I was pretty sure I was still in the lead. As for the $5 bet into an $8.10 pot, maybe it should've been a little higher. I only think about this now, but if he did have a flush draw I probably want to get a little more money in the pot on the turn because if he misses his flush draw he won't pay me on the river. However, I still wasn't ruling out that he had QQ-TT with no hearts, and for those hands I certainly don't want to scare him away. Had I know he had the ace, and an additional 3 outs, I certainly would've bet more. Then the 4th heart comes up on the board and I give him the implied odds he was looking for earlier by calling. At the time it seemed like a fairly halfhearted attempt to represent the flush after I checked the river and because of that I felt I had to call $6 for the chance at winning $24. Frankly, he played me on the river. If he'd've gone all-in I probably would not've called him because I'd seen him do that before with a big hand; when he didn't go all-in (although he only had about $5 left after the $6 bet) he created doubt in my mind whether that last heart helped him or not ( I wasn't too worried about him having a 6 for the straight). Either way I'm out $15 and I'm still not sure if I would play it much different in a similar situation.

Comments on this hand is welcome. If I really screwed up bad somewhere I wanna know about it so I can avoid the same mistake in the future.

I guess that's all for this week. Hopefully next Friday I'll have some more good news to report. I'm going to do one thing this coming week though, and that is to not look at my own PT stats at all until the week is over. I think I'm becoming a little obsessed about tracking each session as I play it to see how much I've won or lost so far. All it does when I'm losing is depress me a little and make me feel like I need to try something different to start winning. And when I see that I'm winning I feel like I tighten up too much and avoid good opportunities to keep from losing that money back. Hell it even depresses me when I win a pretty big pot, check my session and see that that big pot only got me up to $1 winner so far. There's really no logic in that sort of thinking, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it's what I'm thinking when I'm playing. If I can avoid looking at my wins and losses altogether I think I'll be more apt to just to and play every hand as optimally as I know how and let the money go where it goes.

What the hell, I'm bored so I thought I'd go ahead and make an entry.

Because of the weekend I haven't gotten my money transferred to Party yet, but I've played two sessions there today to try and get used to the software a little better.

The first session was this afternoon and I played two tables. They were very loose passive tables and I was able to get into a lot of hands really cheap. My VP$IP for each table was 25+. It was a longer session than I usually play (which is about an hour). I played for about an hour, 40 minutes and am glad I did because that last 40 minutes helped me go from a losing day (albeit a small one) to a winning one. I managed to finally clear about $22 altogether that first session.

For my last session I decided to play 4 tables. I have to say it was very hectic. I'm not sure I played the best game I could've been playing. In fact I'm pretty sure of it. I made very, very few gambles when 4 tabling. For three of them it was pretty non-existent. I ranged from a loss of $4 to a win of $1.45 on those tables. Fortunately my 4th table paid me off pretty well. I got involved with two people when I flopped a set of fives. Both bet pretty big on the flop and on the turn one went all-in and the other dropped out. I even managed to hit an unneeded 5 on the river to give me quads. It was the second set of quads I'd hit today. The first came in the first session and I flopped them, but in that instance I had to coax my sole opponent out of $7 with an oversized bet on the river that I hoped looked like I was bluffing and fortunately he'd caught a pair of kings on the river (he was drawing to the nut straight before that; I sure wished he'd hit that instead). Anyways, I made $21.30 in that last session for a pretty good day altogether. I'm not completely sure I'll play 4 tables again. I like the action, but it was a little too much action at times. And I honestly didn't get a read on anyone playing. I was too busy looking around to see if it was my turn to play. Although at the end I was getting much more comfortable, so I may try it a few more times to see how it works out.

So far I've managed to win about $128 since Wednesday (which I don't think is bad for $25 tables). My PT stats show $133, but I played an ill-fated $5 SNG Friday night for fun. It was 20 people, 2 tables and my table got down to 6 people and I overplayed my KJ on a KQx board. Who woulda thunk a guy would be sitting there (who had me covered) with a KQ? And that play, in a nutshell, is the reason I stay away from SNGs and MTTs completely except to just play them for fun (didn't have much fun finishing 13th place though!) and very, very sparingly. The embarrassing part about this particular SNG is that I was quite a bit above the average chipstack and was dumb enough to tangle with a guy who had an even bigger one. I think I got greedy and wanted to be the chip leader.

Well now I'm bored of this so I'm going to have to try and find something else to occupy me.