I don't know if you knew that or not, you should be more qualified to answer that than me.

I'm from Winnipeg but have been in Lethbridge, Alberta for 2 years or so.

What Downswing?

Mood: Relaxed

Just pulled a decent win for tonight. I'm still doing the "play 15 hours per weekend thing." I'm finding the games on the weekend much more to my liking, so I've opted to try and put the majority of my hours for that time frame. Thursday-Saturday night. It's working well so far, and it's motivating me to play more hours for the whole week. I'm getting anywhere from 15-20 on the weekends, then throw in a small splattering of hours during the rest of the week, including live play. I'm ending up playing more hours than I averaged last year a month (not a hard feat) with better table selection to boot.

To another subject... I hit an awful run of cards last week with some tilt. I played a live session of 2/5 at the Venetian, lost $1600. I should have lost about $700 to bad cards, but I lost an extra $900 due to tilt. It's not so noticeable.. but here's an example:'

I have $600 behind. 2 limpers to me in the BB.. I make it $35 to go w/ black Tens. Good, Loose, Aggressive player calls on the button. It's Headsup.

FLOP$75
[3d][4h]

I bet $50. He makes it $125. I call opting to wait for the turn card to make my next move.

TURN$175
[3d][4h]

I check. Opponent bets $150. Online, this is an easy push for me. The 4 is unlikely to help a LAG.. a set is now less likely and many draws have missed. It's just a good spot to push. However, when this player bet.. I knew I was beat. His demeanor changed when the 4 hit. He was trying to act weak and it was TOO weak. He grew silent too after being boisterous for most of the night, including during hands in which I had seen him bluff.

So I knew I was beat. I pushed anyway. I went against my instincts because I wanted to win a pot. I wanted to see his cards. It was awful. He flipped over A4.

I made this kind of mistake 3 times that night. Not trusting my instincts making bad calls with good reads.. kinda of like Daniel N. does on TV all the time. When I got home I was livid. I was so mad at myself for tilting $900. I just can't do that anymore. I haven't for a long time either. It was terrible.

The next night I decide to play online. I run like AlexMr. for 2 hours. I lost 2700 in a mix of 2/4 and 3/6. I could not win a pot no matter what I did. I left the site.... happy?!?! I was ecstatic I didn't tilt. More than that, my equity #s were so high. I was putting the money in with either the best of it, or 40-60% with folding equity. I just couldn't win. But I did everything I could that was in my control to win. That's all I can ask of myself.

After those low points, and running fairly bad all month so far, I was down 4k. Now after a few days I'm only down $44, virtually even. I had a huge day winning about $2500 online, and I've won some more today. I'm still not sure how the month will turn out but I know I've been giving it my best. The tilt session still angers me but the only thing I can do now is learn from it and move on. I'm not planning on having that happen again for a very, very long time.

Moving on.. My brothers are coming in next weekend. That should be a blast. They'll be staying at my place and we'll be playing a lot of live poker. I want to play online but will have to forgo it this time. It's kinda sad that I can only fit one of them in my car.....

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A hand for fun:

This guy just sat at the table. I'm not sure exactly what gave it away.. but I felt like I was best on the turn.. and his river shove only confirmed that feeling. It must have been a combination of his bet sizing and timing.

http://cakepoker.com/HandHistory/?Hand= ... wcLCxMA%3d

Meh

mood: meh

I've become sick again. Pretty frustrating especially since my brother is coming out for the weekend. It's been hard to put in hours with the nonstop headaches but I've managed a few. I'm up about 2k for the month not including rakeback. A nice feat considering a week and a half ago I was down 4k.

Since my brother is here, I suspect I'll be putting in a lot of live hours this weekend.

Isn't you dad a Dr or something? I swear, for a dude that's in good shape and living in like the driest climate on earth, you sure as fuck get sick a lot. You sure you aint taking pussy pills or something? How the hell did you ever manage to get a hot girlfriend to begin with?!!!

One month down, 11 to go.

January was a tough month for me. I ran quite badly at the 2/4 and 3/6 online. Every time I'd have a 50/50 situation or 40/60 situation I would lose. It got to the point where I was expecting to lose every coinflip I entered in. I guess it's just a standard correction after running so good the past few months.

I played extremely badly live. Had some tilt issues. I think it bothers me that I'm not playing the 5/10... feel like I'm wasting my time I guess? Well, for whatever reason, the tilt is obviously unacceptable. I didn't tilt at all online, which I'm proud of (especially running so badly to start the year) but I have to get this live stuff under control.

Here's my graph for the month, which includes rakeback towards the end:


As you can see I started down a dismal $4k. I didn't have quite the recovery Xaston did, but I'm still proud of my comeback and of playing well (online at least.)

February has started out on a good note. I'm up around 2k today playing a mix of 2/4, 3/6, and 5/10. I played very well and ran pretty hot. I'm actually surprised I didn't finish up more, but I started taking some coolers towards the end of my last session.

On another note, I'm starting to get worried about the Cake games. Friday night and I'm sitting with 5 regulars on the 2/4. This does not bode well. I'm considering other options of places to play, but I'm going to try to ride this out for now and see where it takes me. I miss having the option of playing at my old stomping ground of Prima.