I Took A Break

Between work and my personal life, I've had no time to play.  In all honesty, I had no real incentive to, either.  I was becoming very frustrated, which means I wasn't going to play my best, either. 

I was having an awful run, and it was probably a mix of my play as well as the cards, but whatever the cause, I wasn't going to go that extra mile to try to squeeze in some hands with everything else going on, since all it did was frustrate me.

I received a small rakeback payment yesterday for the combination of December and January, and both months I played very little.  I picked up $25.  It puts me at an even $150 for my CEREUS roll, and $15 for PokerStars.

I'm contemplating playing a little Stars and UB both this weekend, since the RTR Freeroll is tomorrow, and there's nothing bad about a 5K freeroll.  Stars of course is having their 25 Zillion Hand promotion, so I might pop on to win the lottery.

As my work and home responsibilities change, I expect to have less and less time for poker, so I'm considering taking one last shot of playing over my roll and living with the results.

I'll let you know what I decide.

Taking More Beatings

I've been really busy and haven't been able to post or play much lately, but the past couple of sessions of 25NL were abysmal, and I ended up at about $125, and dropped down to 10NL, still short stacking.  I made a little progress and ended back up to about $140.

I didn't make enough last month to earn a rakeback payout apparently, or there is some kind of goofup with the new combined CEREUS rakeback payout system.  It wasn't even $10, so it's not a huge deal.  Next month my rakeback probably won't be all that great either, $25 or $30. 

I was hoping to get back to Contender status by playing a lot of hands, but things aren't working out that way so far this year.  We'll see how it goes.

Also, for those of you that have recently left comments, I greatly appreciate it, and I will answer them when I can.

This Is Getting Frustrating

I put in another hour or so last night.  It puts me at just over 4000 hands of 25NL since I got PT3 working with CEREUS.  End result? - $10.  Why?  I lost twice to 5 outers on the flop (one was against 62 where the guy called my raise, hit his 6 and could not wait to get it in, magic 2 on the turn), and I made two poorly timed 3bets preflop with Ax against nutjobs that both decided to have big pocket pairs, and I didn't hit my A.  I'm back to about $195 again.  I'm relying on my massive $9 rakeback to give me a boost here in the next week.

I also played one of the .25 12000 people tourneys on Stars for hoots.  I was doing fine but  a little shortstacked when I ran my 44 into A3 on a flop where I was ahead against his 2 out gutshot.  A set for me and a straight for him on the river, of course.

What A Struggle

For all the hands I know I'm playing right, and others are playing wrong, they're still managing to flop miracles against me - 2 pair against TPTK when I have AQ and they have 97, I've raised to 1.10, they call, and there's 5 in my stack.  I'm betting the pot hoping for a call, they raise, and of course I'm calling, this is the perfect flop - Q97 rainbow.  Of course I'm toast, and everyone is saying 'nice hand'.  Because that guy played it great calling off 1/4 of my effective stack with 97s and no odds to draw.  I'm not getting away from that hand, I'm not outplayed, I'm out lucked.

All that aside, I'm supposed to want people to make those calls, and I guess I generally do, except lately they are crushing me, hitting magic flop after magic flop.  Or they have J4s and calling my raise OOP and they have a flush draw on the flop, pay incorrect odds when we get it in, and runner runner 4's for 3 of a kind.  It's been difficult for me to maintain any semblance of composure.

I've still managed to claw my way out of my recent -$50 deficit to get up over $200.  I guess that means I won about three $10 BI tonight.  Go me.

Available:    $ 206.67 USD
In Play:    $ 0.00 USD
Total:    $ 206.67 USD


I feel like I at least accomplished something.  

That reminds me, I don't like how CEREUS now sends you to a website to view your account.  I liked it better when it was in the client.  It felt more safe, seeing as kids these days are cracking SSL with Playstation 3's.

It looks like I managed to collect 6 bucks last month in rakeback.  Imagine that.  I've already managed to get 4k hands into PT3, 3300 of those at 25NL, and I'm running at a gross .72 PTBB/100

A Little Better

I haven't had as much time as I expected over the holidays, but I managed to get another hour or so in last night, 8 tabling 25NL.  I stacked off twice within the first 5 minutes.  It didn't make me happy.  I don't even remember what the hands were, or whether I was coolered, bad beated, or played them poorly.  I just know I was really annoyed, and was tempted to take my last $130 and buy in full at the 200NL tables and say forget it, double up or go home.  Poker has been really frustrating since I started back up over the past few days.  Very little seems to be going right when I'm ahead.

I managed to cool cool off and play a little more.  I ran AA into AA preflop against a terrible maniac and managed to escape by splitting the pot instead of losing to a flush.  At that point, I knew things would have to turn around for me, and they started to.  I managed to suck out on a guy with my AQ vs. his AK when we both flopped an A, which is the 2nd time in two days that's happened in my favor.  I also managed to get paid off on a couple of sets.  I think I've had 4 real suckouts the past couple of days where I was behind the whole time, but thought I was good, got it in, and managed to win the hand.  As often as I'm losing when I'm ahead, winning when I'm behind is the only thing keeping me in the game.

By the end of my session, I was back up to $175.  I'm still not where I started, but I'd rather be at $175 than at $100 or less.

I'm getting used to the subtle CEREUS interface changes, but I have to say the lobby is much worse.  I'd like to be able to filter out games so I can just see open tables at the level I'm interested in.  Instead it updates in batches and the games are constantly scrolling.  It's really difficult to find a table. I also wish they had a spot where you could just say 'open 9 tables of level x and tile them'.  It would save me so much time.  It seems like it takes 10 minutes to get 8 tables up.  I also accidentally bet $10 into a $1 pot as a continuation bet with a missed AK, instead of $1, and managed to not get called.  I have also accidentally folded and showed a couple times when it was not my intent.

In other news, back down to 'player' status from playing so little after my withdrawal, so my points earning is practically nil.  I should be back to 'contender' by the end of the month.  Hopefully I'll have earned enough points by that time to cash in some bonus points.  We'll see.