Weeks 10/11 The end may be near.

I try to keep my updates to at least once a week but I have not been able to bring myself to write. There are a few reasons for my laziness with the main one being my obsession to get back to even. I have been spending a lot more time playing because I am trying to get through this current patch and no matter how many hands I play, things never seem to get better and when they do its only temporary.

I titled this the way I did, because I am really fearful of the current landscape of online poker. There isn't as much easy money floating around as there was 2 months ago. Almost everyone I play against is a regular of some sort and there are very few fish left.

I have several options.

Keep playing, but only play when times are optimal which is what I have been doing. All last week I was only playing 3-5 tables whereas I am normally playing 6.

Find another site. I am looking into this but there is nothing promising.

Find something better to do with my time. I actually like this option but nothing else I can do at this point will yield me the returns that poker does.


After my $1000 hit in one day last week, I proceeded to go on a really good run. I completely stopped playing 100NL and moved back to down to 50NL. Fortunately I ran like a god at 50NL and won almost 5-6 days in a row. I got my account from $4400 all the way back up to $6050. Of course, as soon as I started adding on 100NL tables things would go to crap. One thing I really noticed this last week were the big differences between 100NL and 50NL. The two games play very differently. I also learned during this time how much easier 50NL really is. I can pretty much play with my eyes closed whereas at 100NL I need to pay a lot more attention.

After my nice little win streak, I then lost several days in a row. I think in the last 7-8 days I have only won twice. In that time my account has gone from $6050 to as low as $4850.

I was losing again yesterday taking more then my fair share of suckouts when in my 3rd sit-down of the day I finally got things to turn around a little. I was down $200 on the day and came back on a $320 upswing. That doesn't include two big suckouts at NL100 where I was a huge favorite and of course lost. Those two pots were about $150 each. I'm obviously not allowed to ever have a big day because I can't go a day without having some crap like that happening. At the same time, whenever I put the money in behind in a really big pot, I never come back. Ever.

Here are my two favorite hands over the last couple days.

Hand 1: Preflop raiser is a fish and very volatile. He raises UTG to $4.50 in a $100NL game. There is a reraise by UTG+1 to $8.50. I had 8 8 and usually like to call here but I don't want to throw away $8 when our LAGfish 4bets preflop so I just fold.

Flop 8 8 x

Long story short, about $300 goes in the middle. I would have won my biggest pot ever on cake and I would have gone from being down $200 to up over $100.

Hand 2: Theres this one guy who's a huge fish that I always follow around. I found him last night at 100NL and took a good amount from him.

He raises, theres a reraise and I have 5 5.

I decide to just let it go and the following happens.

Final board.

8 2 6 5 x

Fish had 2 2
I had 5 5
Original raiser had 8 8.

I would really love to be on the good end of one of those just once.

I also realize that I am talking about 100NL considering the amount of complaining I have done over the last week. Over the weekend, the games were a lot better which was why I was able to sit down in some of the games. I do not expect the games to be good this week since they were so bad last week. What that means is that I will have to keep grinding NL50 for a while until there are some changes.

I have also started taking some bigger shots.

Over the weekend I found an NL600 table with four players on it.

These were the stacks.

$1500
$200
$180
$130

Those 3 small stacks meant only one thing for me. Free money. I waited until the seat to the left of the $1500 stack opened up and as soon as it did I snatched it right up.

No more then two minutes later the big stack got up and I was alone on a big table with 3 fish. Can I run good one time?

There was only 1 real interesting hand and the rest of the hands involved me picking up pots on the flop and preflop which was surprisingly easy. But heres the interesting hand.

Fish raises to $21.

I 3 bet to $75 with A J and he calls.

Flop J x x. I put him all-in which is only about $70 more for him. He immediately folds. Easy money. I only played about 15 minutes but I made a quick $250 which is really nice when you are struggling.

I expect to be taking more shots like that in the future when table dynamics allow it. After that one time, I couldn't ever find another table like that. Instead all the big tables had players who were all playing really deep.

Lastly, the only other good thing I have going right now is the contest at raketracker.com

I am currently sitting in 3rd with today being the last day before the contest is over. On a more positive note I am comfortably in 3rd and with a little bit of play tonight I should be able to lock that up.

3rd will add an extra $450 onto my account which is ballin.

Overall this is where I stand.

Hands played: 77,480
Account: $5146.44
Rakeback: $1931.78
Contest: $450.00?

If I take 3rd in the contest this is where I stand.

$7528.22

I plan on putting in a bunch of hands tonight and want to acheive the following.

1. Get to at least $5500 because then I will finish even.
2. Play 80k hands. (I will probably never play this many hands again in a month.)
3. Soldify my positioning in the conest. The next place down pays $150 less and the next spot up is unattainable.

I should be updating again tomorrow with my month in review post.

I cannot wait for this dreadful month to end. Never have I had so much variance and swings in one month. I fully expect July to be a huge heater. It would only make sense.

I would also like to congratulate two of my favorite degens. Congrats go out to Mike Matusow and Scotty Nguyen for winning braceletts at this years WSOP.