Took a Small Break

I took a little break, although it wasn't on purpose. I didn't play a hand of online poker for 4 days straight. I played live a bunch of times in that span and was just not feeling like playing online when I got home.

However, I put in a nice little 1.5hr session today for a small profit.

I think we are nearing the stage in the challenge where it starts to get difficult to stay motivated. A lot of us are on some type of slump or downswing and after putting in over a month's effort, we are noticing that this isn't as easy as we thought it might be.

Hang in there gentleman, once we get up to the next stakes you can actually start putting in some nice wins that feel a little more significant than the ones we get now.

I am planning on putting in some hands this weekend, I hope to have a follow up post on those sessions after.

Grind on the Mind

After slipping greatly for a big session, I hopped back on the horse to grind back up.

The above graph was the next session after my last downswing. "Don't call it a comeback, I've been here for years" indeed. I had a fairly typical beginning to the session. Went down then up a bit, nothing major. Then I started taking some beats/coolers. Pretty standard stuff, but after the session before, I was feeling some urgency to bounce back.

Adam was sweating me and he saw some of the uglier hands. I could feel myself getting more frustrated but I didn't want to stop playing yet. I knew if I kept taking beats like that I would have to just wrap up the session, but I wasn't quite ready to yet.

I decided to notch back my preflop hands by about one level. I just tightened up a bit and tried to level out.

Over the next 1200 hands or so things leveled out a lot. I didn't take any unusual beats/coolers, but I wasn't really putting my money all in all that often. When I did, my hands were best and held up. Nice.

I really felt in the zone at this point. Not in the zone in the sense that I had all my tables figured out and was just soul-reading everyone. But just in the grind zone, where I had a good mental state, was playing at or near A-game, and wasn't bored.

I had a nice little run at the end of the session and actually pulled a profit out of it. I was super happy with this as having run fairly bad in the mid part of the session, I wasn't counting on cashing-out winner. I've stopped looking at my running total while playing also. I find it fairly distracting to be checking your total too often, so I just leave it aside now if I can.

Jumped back in for 2 sessions yesterday, ran slightly above EV, and crushed it for a nice $16.00 session. Put in another session after that, this one was about half the size hands wise, but I cashed +$15.00 on that one. There was lots of action and people were just shoving into my big hands.

I am hoping for a little while longer of no run-bad so I can get up to $200.00 and finally out of this level (even if it is temporary).

Rakeback coming shortly as well, and I have been really trying to put in more hands as I think I can grind more than I have been, so it should be good as well. Ended at $142.00 I think, pre-rakeback.

Down Again

I have more to write probably but wanted to get something up. Last nights session was now my 3rd brutal downswing. It was similar to my last, where my overall level of play was lacking and where coolers/beats made things that much worse.

I had one guy at a table who was really trying hard to give away his stack, but I kept failing at taking it. He played strangely, lasted for about 2 hours, so he wasn't just literally shoving ATC pre or anything. But he would make... questionable plays.

Examples?

SURE:

So we had dueled a bit already. I had KTo and flopped a K vs. him early. He snap called all in on the flop with Qd7d for a FD which he hit. A bit later I ended up all in with him when I had AX and he had AJ on an A high flop. The money had been flowing. After a long while, I had relegated myself to waiting on a good hand vs. this guy. I picked up AK in MP, raised it up, he pot-raised me back, I shipped pre. He tank-folded.

The very next hand was very similar, but he found a premium hand to call with. Well sorta anyway. Bleh

I hung in there for a long time, but wasn't the one who eventually got his money a while later. Ya free money would have been good, oh wellz.

So lets look at some suckouts/coolers why don't we? These are all pretty standard.

It wasn't all bad, but taking those hits repeatedly sure takes it toll on the roll.

I hit on the river here. Seasky is a pretty bad player a he makes a fairly absurd move here. He tries as hard as he can to make me fold my hand even though he has the nuts, but I just am too stubborn. He had made some really stupid overbets like this throughout the session and I was inclined to call him regardless. Thank goodness for getting there, as against his particular hand, my hand pretty much sucks.

This is a pretty standard line for a beginning player who is drawing and has missed. I pick up on this fact and hero call the bet for a reasonable pot. I think it's probably overall advisable to just avoid these spots, but when you know you are right, go with it.

Sometimes being the one pushing the action at your table is good. By the time he had called my preflop 4-bet, we had $6.44 in the middle, and it felt like any KK, QQ, JJ or TT type hand would just go with it on that flop, so I shoved. Turns out he had even worse.

So ya, good times. I know that at some point I got tilted because I fell into the mentality that everything was going to go wrong. I got it in with AK vs QQ, and just felt like I was going to lose no matter what (I flopped a K on an all spade board, and Villain hit a spade on the turn fwiw). This is a pretty inappropriate view to have while actually playing. I did stop once I became aware of my mental state, but a careful review of the session will review mistakes that I normally wouldn't make I am pretty sure.

Back on the horse..