These past few nights have been two of the biggest roller coaster sessions I've ever experienced. Wednesday night I played for roughly 3 and a half hours. At one point in the night, I was down $860 at the $200 buyin tables on PartyPoker.com. WOW. I was four tabling, so being down 4 buyins is not really a LARGE loss, but it is one I am not used to being a part of. I was taking some incredibly horrible beats. I will not post them on here, but let's just say it was 4 outter after 4 outter after 2 outter. :( Slowly I began to build my stacks back up and actually finished the night only down $104. I played about 900 hands and finished my bonus during the night. So, technically I was down $204 for the night, but the bonus was added to my account so I recorded that I lost $104 on the night.

I was feeling pretty bummed about the session. It's not that I was playing horrible poker.
Whenever you have those sessions that it seems like no matter how well you are playing, you still lose... yeah those sessions suck. Oh well, there is always the next day. Which brings me to.... Thursday late night session. I started play on Thursday at about 1am. In about an hours time I was up about $200. No really big hand, just picked up several small spots and gradually worked my stacks up to about $250 on each table. And then the poker gods must have declared war on me. Just as last night, I began to take beat after beat. None of my good hands held up for about a 2 hour period. It was absolutely brutal. The most I was down was $450, but it definitely seemed like more.

I had a revelation during this session. Four tables is not enough. I decided to fight back with the poker gods and try and decrease my variance. I have played six tables before, but not for an extended amount of time. I wanted to try out six tables for several hours and see if I could keep up.

Well, results were pretty good. I climbed out of being in the negative for the session and ended up $640. My biggest win at $1/$2 to date. I played for a total of 6 hours and fifteen minutes. One of my longest sessions in a long while. The session did not end until 7:15 AM. Fun stuff. I sure am glad I do not have Friday classes this semester. :)

After this guy called two all ins with 55, first guy had KK, second guy AA, and then it was this guys turn to act. He had about $80 in front of him at the $200 buyin. He calls with 55, and he wins when the board goes JJ995.

His response, "I've blown enough money on here that the All in didnt scare me..."

I love PartyPoker.com

I finished studying for a test tomorrow at about 12:30AM. I was bored, but tired of studying. Naturally, I loaded up Party Poker and decided to play some. "You have a 20% deposit bonus available. Add funds now!" Sweet. I deposited an extra $500 into my account to get the max $100 bonus. I have to play 10 raked hands for every $1 of bonus, so I have to play 1000 raked hands to get my bonus of $100. That's not too bad, considering I play about 35 hands an hour per table, and I play 4 tables at a time. So 35 * 4 = 140 hands an hour.... 1000 / 140 = roughly 7 hours of playing. Hey, play poker for 7 hours and get paid $100 no matter what. Sounds good to me!

Anyway, my session started off very rocky. I was in mid position with 44. There were a couple limpers so I decided to limp as well. Small blind makes it $14 to go, BB flat calls (ooook) one of the limpers calls, as do I (naturally wanting to hit a 4). Flop comes 46A two hearts. Bingo. Pot is about $56 right now. SB (original raiser) bets out 35 into 56. BB just calls (ok, this was my mistake. I did not have much information on the BB, who just flat calls that bet right there. Maybe the AX of hearts?) Limper folds and I reraise to 90. Purpose of this raise is to make the draws pay. SB folds (probably weak ace, maybe QQ or KK). This is where it gets fun. BB goes all in for another $100 to me. So, 56 in preflop, 35 from SB, 90 from other guy, and 90 from me. That's about $270 in the pot right now and it is $100 more to me. Even if he has AX of hearts I am still in command of the hand. I actually said in chat, "I guess I have to pay off aces." and then I called the all in. blank on turn and heart on river. Crap. Turns out he had the dreaded AA.

Looking back on it, I do not see how I could have gotten away from this hand. I think my only mistake was MAYBE calling preflop? I think after the flop I am pretty much committed to it all. That smooth call from the BB preflop and on the flop should have set off lightbulbs in my head. I guess I am still not good enough to make these kinds of lay downs.

Anyway, so after about ten minutes I was down $200. That's no good. I slowly crept back up to even, and eventually put together a rather nice session through a combination of semi bluffs on the turn and flopping the nuts. Naturally, it's not hard to win money when you flop the nuts. In any case, I ended up about $340 in about an hour and a half time. Very solid session and let us hope I can keep up this pace.

In a side note, I will, hopefully, be going to Vegas for the first part of 2007. If I keep up with $1/$2 on Party I might actually have a bank roll to play with in Vegas! Wish me luck.

I played poker last Sunday night. I played for about 3 and a half hours and profitted $122. I suppose at $1/$2 that is a pretty crappy hourly rate, however, it is still a win. It was a pretty crazy night. I lose a few key pots that would have put me at a profit of $450, however, that's poker.

First pot I lost was my AQ v K7s on flop of AQ3 two clubs. Naturally, we got it all in and he hit his flush on the river :( That lost me about $100 there. Then an hour later or so, I make a dumb bluff into a guy when a flush card hit (I did have a redraw but could not call his all in) That cost me another $100. Then, the worst hand came up. I've got 66 middle position. I call the BB and button raises. BB calls and I call. Flop comes K63. Sweet. BB checks, I bet 3/4 pot, guy that raised originally reraises me about a pot sized bet. I push fairly quickly and he quickly calls. Uh oh, KK really? No, AA, but he hit an Ace on the turn to regain the lead. Sadly, my case 6 did not come on the river and that cost me $170. So loss of $100, $100 (this one could have been avoided, but naturally, I'm retarded) and $170.

I noticed my mistakes and hopefully will not make them again. That's all I can really do.

So, instead of moving back down to the $100 buyin, I decided to give the $200 buyin one more chance. If at first you don't succeed, try try again. This session was much better than the previous three. I wasn't getting incredible hands, but my great hands were holding up. I played for about an hour, and was quickly down $100. In the course of the next hour and a half, I gained $600 bringing me to a profit of $500 in two and a half hours of playing. Sweet.

I really needed that session to get my confidence back. Taking a loss has been very devastating for me. I think now I am beginning to figure out that there are days where I am not going to come out ahead. I need to learn to deal with these days and get over them. They are inevitable. The quicker I put these bad days behind me (but learn from my mistakes, if any), the better off I will be.

Oh, BTW, I found the URL for Paul Wasicka's Blog. Be sure to check out Paul Wasicka's Blog.

I moved up to the $200 buyin table on PartyPoker last week. I played three sessions. Up $250, down $400, down $650. Now, that is only a loss of 4 buy ins, which is not really that big of a loss. Losing 4 buyins in NL is not that big of a deal, but I was not ready for that big of a loss to my bankroll. I do not think I moved up prematurely, I still believe I can beat the $200 buyin, however, I think it is in my best interest to move back down where I am comfortable playing at.

I think this is one of the main reasons I have been successful in online poker. I do not take too many risks. I played the $25 buyin for nearly a year before I moved up! I learned so much in that years time. I stayed at the $50 buyin very briefly before finding a sweet spot at the $100 buyin. I still think I need more time at the $100 buyin to build my confidence before moving into the $200 buyin.

I was just not mentally ready to lose $800 in a span of a week in about 10 poker playing hours. When I am ready, I will move up. Until then, you can find me at the $100 buyin table on PartyPoker.com