Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at -$5.062
Change: $795
I played some $2/$4 on Party Poker yesterday and it went well. I had to dig myself out of a $800 hole from some days ago, but I managed to do that and make a nice little profit.
It'll take a miracle to turn this month into anything but a big loss, but I'll try to get some hands in today and see if I can make some of my money back.
KTo in the Small Blind: This was a nice little pot at $2/$4.
Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at -$5.857
Change: $1.612
I've been on a break from poker for a few days now, just relaxing and pursuing some hobbies. It wasn't anything planned, but one day away from the tables became two and so on.
Due to a longer story some friends and I have been dueling with some new Magic: The Gathering theme decks lately. It was great fun, so I dug out my old collection of cards to see if I could construct some of the older theme decks. It took me a couple of days, but I managed to build almost all of the decks from Tempest to Torment. I left magic for poker, around the time Judgment came out.
I played a short session again yesterday and it went well, I think I played well and the competition doesn't seem to have gotten any better while I was away. I hope to be able to get a number of good sessions in before the month is over and improve a bit upon my poor results.
Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at -$7.469
Change: -$2.606
Again an abysmal day and another horrid run of cards. My loss comes from two very different sessions I had, one late last night and the other this morning.
I am setting up Eurobet and have been playing there a bit. The games and the software seem fine. I took a session at $600 NL there yesterday and ended in a hectic 3 handed game with a maniac.
He overbet every hand he was involved in and he was involved in most hands. I flopped top pair or better 5 times against him and all the money went in on all the hands. Once he bluffed of a stack, twice he bluffed but sucked out, once I lost a coin flip and lastly he had me out kickered.
Today I decided to play a very solid game and tighten up a bit, just to avoid variance and hopefully grind myself a couple of winning sessions to get my spirits back up. Unfortunately I got hammered again by the deck and ended yet another session down.
A9s in the Big Blind: I am not saying I played flawless either, I made my share of mistakes. This is a good bet by Villain on the river, I should have just folded preflop, on the turn or on the river.
I am having trouble uploading pictures to this site so I'll host my new Eurobet banner in this post.
Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at -$4.863
Change: $1.013
I had more to say yesterday, but the entry started getting long so I'll spread all the stuff I want to write about over a couple of days.
After these last days losses my bankroll has for the first time in a long while dipped below $20.000, it is hard to imagine it was at $45.000 just a couple of weeks ago.
Last month I cashed out $10.000 and since then I have been running horridly.
That means unfortunately that I am not properly staked for $5/$10 anymore. Luckily I won some back today and my bankroll is at $19.900 at this time of writing, so hopefully I won't have to stay away from $5/$10 for long, but I think it is wise for me to stick with my strict bankroll rules and play the limits I am staked for. Especially now that I have been getting poor results.
Today I've been playing $3/$6 and I got some good results, the games were ok and I played a solid game. A win is always welcome.
A8o in the Cut Off: The idea was to disguise the strength of my hand and go for a check/raise on the turn. I guess I picked a poor spot to slowplay. I should have folded the river.
I have been trying to make some updates to the layout, I need to update the links section and replace the Eurobet banner, but the site has been giving me troubles lately.
Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at -$5.876
Change: -$3.947
As my results show I am still running bad. I was at -$6.100 yesterday, so at my low point I have been at minus 16 buy ins.
I saw a guy yesterday sit down at a table, flop the nuts or close to it 4 times within 50 hands and win $10.000. People pushed their entire deep stacks into him, sometimes with nothing, over and over and without even knowing if he knew how to play the game or not I saw him get up from the tables a $10.000 winner.
As chance will have it I have never had such a run of cards. I have actually had close to the opposite a couple of times. That is I've flopped the nuts 4 times in 50 hands and lost a fortune.
I can probably count on one hand the times I have sat at a table with 3 buy ins at $5/$10, even though I see people sitting with that big stacks every day that I play. I hope my time will come someday.
What I can learn from this is that poker will most likely be a much more rewarding game for me in the future. I am positive that I have had a much worse than average run in my late poker career than should be expected.
So in turn if my next years play of poker will turn out to be an average run, I can expect it to be a much more fun, rewarding and fair game.
Whatever the case, I have no doubt that I am playing a winning game and the losses do not affect me as much as they used to. They have even started to give me a strong desire to fight back and play more, where I usually lost the drive after a bad session.
Here are my latest two big losers:
AA from Under the Gun
QTs in the Cut Off
Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at -$1.929
Change: $1.786
I am really not playing very good poker at the moment, but the cards were good last session so I made back some of my losses. I am inconsistent and unfocused so I have to shape up if I want to end the month on positive.
AA in the Big Blind: Should I bet out here or not, I don't really know. I wonder how the hand would have played out if I hadn't, the villain who folded on the flop said he had QQ and would have turned a set.
The weekend isn't over yet so I might be able to make some more money, I better get back to work.
Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at -$3.715
Change: -$1.266
My luck hasn't turned around yet unfortunately, I was almost at -$5.000 a day or two ago. Poker is very tough during such bad runs.
There isn't much else for me to do than to try to play my best game and hope that my luck will change. Until then my blogging will suffer as it inevitably does during bad spells.
Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at -$2.449
Change: $158
I am getting kind of tired of my poor luck lately. Since my last update I've won about $3.000 and lost it all back to awful suck outs.
In order to play poker tax free, I plan to move to Denmark and start playing on European sites. Party Poker, Eurobet and Ladbrokes are all based in Europe so there shouldn't be any problems finding games.
I've put a banner linking to Eurobet on the right.
I currently live in Faroe Islands and I don't really know what to do with poker and taxes here. The authorities here have shown about as much professionalism as a lemonade stand and I don't want to keep playing poker if I don't know how my winnings will be taxed.
Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at -$2.607
Change: -$2.390
My good streak didn't last long.
I didn't play my best game yesterday, but I am sure I played a winning game nonetheless. The cards just didn't fall my way.
99 from Under the Gun: I only won two pots with any money in them yesterday.
Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at -$217
Change: $1.498
I hit a low sometime earlier this week at about -$3.800 for the month. I didn't feel like writing about it at the time, so I postponed blogging for a couple of days. At that time I had dropped around $14.000 in about 2 weeks play.
I have made some changes to my game lately, namely playing more tables, moving up stakes and getting more hands in each day. Because of the recent loss, I decided 2 days ago to take it a bit easy and play my normal game for a while.
Luck has certainly been the main factor in my loss, but I have to consider that stepping it up a level has influenced my game in a negative way as well. There probably isn't one obvious leak I can plug, my luck won't change if I play less tables or if I stick to $5/$10 or if I limit the hands I play each day. The "leak" is more likely a combination of all of the above, some tilt and a very poor run of cards.
So I slowed things down a bit and have been playing good poker since then. I've almost fought my way back to even for the month and I am looking forward to starting the fight to reach $11.000 again.
AA in the Small Blind: I'm still not immune to suck outs, even though I find a good $3/$6 game. The session didn't start out too well and I thought I was in for another couple of buy-ins down the drain.
97s in the Cut Off: But things turned around quickly when I made a suck out of my own.
Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at -$1.715
Change: -$1.715
Since I failed to reach my monthly goal in March, I think I will keep it at the same level for the April.
I've now dropped over $12.000 this last week or so. Even though I try to think about April as a new start, it is hard to ignore that fact. 12 buy ins is an awfully big amount to lose and if I wasn't building a bankroll for $10/$20 I would have probably been forced to move down to $3/$6 after this run.
Fortunately my bankroll is still at a comfortable amount for $5/$10, I just have to give my try outs for $10/$20 a rest for a while.
On a bright note, I've booked my flight and reserved my hotel room for WSOP 2007. I have even pre-registered for Event #12, $1.500 NL Hold'em short-handed.
I can't wait.
Monthly goal: $11.000
I made $3.203
Change: -$5.063
I didn't play much after the beat I posted about on March 28th. I finally got my act together and played a real session again yesterday, but unfortunately I again got beat by the deck and my winnings took another big hit.
March is over and I think the best thing to do is to write it up as a small win and focus on playing well in April. Once you have gone through the mistakes of a losing session the best thing to do is just forget about it and move on.
AA on the Button: A weird way to loose a buy in.
