Frustrating

Last night's session seemed like hard work. My game seemed to be all over the shop, sometimes making good moves and smart plays and other times I just couldn't play hands any worse.

My dumbest hand of the night by far was against an early position raise from a loose/aggressive player. I've got pocket queens so I re-raise him solidly and he calls, which I expected. The board comes 5, 5, 7 or something like that and stupidly I check thinking he'll take a stab at the pot with his lower pair or ace high. He instead checks and the next card comes a king so I bet, he re-raises all-in and for some reason I call ... he of course turns over ace king and my stack is decimated. Just a dumb, dumb play and I was embarrassed I made it.

Another surprisingly horrible move by me came when I was 4-tabling and on one table I had ace king suited and on the other I had ace 4 suited, both on the button. One table there was a raise and a call and the other had a short-stack all-in. For some reason I re-raised all-in over the top of the all-in with ace 4 suited thinking it was the AK and by the time I realised what I had done, I decided to fold the AK on the other table and get my shit together. The ace 4 suited was up against pocket queens but I turned the flush for the nuts ... woops.

I played 23 tournaments last night, $2 180 man games but mostly $3.25 45 man games and cashed 5 of them. No heads-up action but I did have a 3rd and a 4th ... as well as roughly 5 bubbles, so roughly a break-even night by the end of it. I had a look at my August numbers and my profit is essentially all coming from the 45 man games. I realise the 180's have a higher variance and aren't suited to my normal/old game, but I'd like to continue to play them, work on them a little more and hopefully see some better results.

Won't be playing online tonight as I'm off to see Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds", I'll let you know what its like next time. Also not playing tomorrow as I'm catching up with a friend I haven't seen for a few months.

Running baaad

Actually, that title should be "Running Baaad", with a capital B. Yes, it was that bad.

Yesterday I started playing around 10am, had a break to get some grocery shopping and have dinner and then played again last night. To say it was a bad day would be an understatement. I had no luck, could get nothing going and couldn't get any cards to hold up. No matter how far ahead I was when the money went in, the villain would catch whatever miracle cards they needed to outrun me and send me packing.

I've just checked the numbers and I played 39 tournaments yesterday. Two big field tournaments, the rest $1 90 man turbo's, $2 180 man turbo's and a few $2 90 man non-turbo's. Out of those 39 games:

• I made ONE final table at the end of the night but just came 7th (and it was only a $1 game)
• I cashed just FIVE times (out of 39, my normal % would see me cash at least twice that often)

It wasn't even that I was bubbling or getting close, I was getting killed off early (for me) in most of them. I'm not sure whether you put a day like this down to variance or the fact that it would have been Saturday night overseas and therefore people are mucking around or drunk or don't care.

Should I just play weeknights from now on, where I seem to do so much better? Was I playing too many games? Whatever the answer, I'd prefer not to have another day like yesterday.

The only respectable effort was a deep'ish finish in the big field tournament at the end of the night. Out of 2682 players I finished 155th, not a great financial return but a solid effort. How did I get knocked out? Button (big stack) raises with 8 10 hearts, I (short stack) call with king jack off in the big blind as does someone else. Flop comes king, jack, rag with two hearts on the board. I'm first to act and shove all-in trying to kill any further play. The other player eventually calls and the big blind calls. The turn is of course another heart, I don't improve and am out.

Bankroll is back down to about US$345 I think.