September gaining steam.

Entertaining online screen name of the week: IfukedAnurse


September has been a rough ride so far. I started the month Monday with a bad taste of August in my mouth, having lost 19k in the last week. So I sat down Monday, happy to be starting on a fresh month, and BAM BAM BAM BAM lost four times in a row with AK vs QQ or QQ vs AK. Another couple of buy-ins went, and one hour into the month I am down $6k. Nice.

Luck is a funny thing. After such a session I often think about how many hours it will take to earn that back. At an expected $400/hr, thats 15 hours of work I just lost in one hour, and of course I was pissed. But somehow, yesterday evening I had a great day and made it all back plus $800 in just four hours. How am I supposed to make sense of that?

Today was just another trip down into the gutter of bad results. I was down 5 buy-ins not having a single spot of luck, but just this last hour everything turned around, and I come out of the day about $500 ahead. Not a flashy result, but sometimes a small win feels like a world championship. A small world championship, granted.

I was amazed today when one of the regulars played this hand against me. You know you have a rotten table image when someone does that with a pair of sevens. Or he was just on monkey tilt, I dunno:

Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $5/$10
6 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $1107
UTG+1: $2808
CO: $1334
Hero: $1409
SB: $1248
BB: $1559

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is Button with :qc :ac
UTG raises to $30, UTG+1 folds, CO calls, Hero raises to $130, 2 folds, UTG raises to $285, CO folds, Hero calls.

Flop: :jd :qs :6c ($615, 2 players)
UTG bets $275, Hero raises all-in $1124, UTG calls all-in $547.
Uncalled bets: $302 returned to Hero.

Turn: :as ($2259, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $2259)

River: :th ($2259, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $2259)

Results:
Final pot: $2259
UTG shows 7s 7c (one pair)
Hero shows Qc Ac (two pair)


Would you have folded that AQ preflop? You probably should most of the time. I kind of had a feeling he was going a little insane. That's what happens sometimes in the 3-betting war, don't let it happen to you.

August is broken...

...and it happened on the 24th or thereabouts. Apparently advertising your own competence in the game of poker through coaching adds is enough to piss off Lady Luck. I know that I am probably not generating a lot of sympathy with a $20k month, so to compensate I will have to feel extra sorry for myself. No seriously I am happy with the end result, I just had my expectations set a lot higher after a terrific first half.

In terms of BB/100 I have also had a satisfactory month (2.7BB/100), but it just so happened that I ran very bad at 2000NL and very well at 600NL, not a recipe for success. My hourly rate is about $200/hr which of course is a disgrace to myself and poker players everywhere.

I managed my 100 hour goal for the month, and I am quite happy with that. For September I will try and exceed that by playing 120 hours. That would be a monthly record for me.