Running Well

And not running well also. I guess it's about even. The baby could not sleep without someone holding her through the night, and the wife was nice enough to let me take a nap yesterday evening, so the job was mine. I don't mind so much. At least I got in a few poker hands.

Yesterday's MTTs were kind of a debacle. I really didn't focus on them. There was that KQ hand, but there was also a hand I lost with AA vs. AK vs. TT when a T hit the flop. That would have sent me, but it was not to be. Just gotta dodge those bullets in that situation. Nothing else I could do.

I regret playing the early double. It's fun to mix it up, but when you just go completely card dead, you wonder why you put a relatively large amount of money in ($6) when you know you're negative EV.

Played three SNGs this morning, and it helped make up for the earlier losses. First game, I was the first one eliminated. I had QQ in mid pos, one or two limpers, and a big re-raiser all in out of the big blind. Generally, people holding AA or KK do not raise like this, opting more often to put in that middle-raise, where it puts the opponent to a decision push it all over the top or fold. I called, and did so correctly, as he turned over AJ. An ace on the flop sent me packing.

The next game, I nitted it up, and we were 4-5 handed for quite a long time. I hit some crucial hands at big moments - flopped a straight with rags, etc. Also won again with KQ to AK when I flopped the straight. It was a dogfight, but I ended up getting HU and getting QQ and AJ on back to back hands and took all the chips, even though I probably shouldn't have won.

The next game, I should have won, but lost. I had a spewtard on my left and we ended up getting HU. Official poker rankings is an ok guage on a player's ability, but isn't nearly as good as sharkscope with the precision. Official poker rankings had my opponent as a losing player, and, as is a pretty common trend (I'll get to this in a second), he played big and had some relatively big wins early on, and is now nitting up the $5-$10 games.

Anyways, with QT, I call a raise, and it comes down T high. I have a 2.5k chip advantage at this point. No doubt, the way we have been playing, I 100% have the best hand here. He bets the flop, leaving himself with about 3.5k, and I have to decide how much to bet.

I had check raised him several times in this exact situation about 2-3 times before (usually with top pair), but I had not pushed all in. I was confident about my hand, and confident about my read to think that this was the point I wanted to strangle him and get his frustration call. I was right. He called and flipped up KJ. Turn K, River, K. Next hand I get AK, he pushes QQ, and I miss, game over.

As I said before, a lot of the players I am now encountering, when I look them up on official poker rankings, have a very good history early on, but then just get banged on so hard that they end up dropping down to where I am. It is rare to find someone who is a winning player, according to their calculations. Although mine is modest, it is still on the winning side. I wonder if these guys get a $500 win early and then just decide that they belong in the $75 games. Then they hit a losing streak of 9 straight and it's all gone. It is interesting because OFP's first page is just the player's wins. You have to click on a tab to also display the losses. I mean, some guys have multiple, large three and sometimes four figure scores and do NOT have a profit to show for it!

I wonder if I belong in those games.

In total for the weekend, BR is up. Will consider perhaps moving to $10 games if I can run this up to $1k. That's still a long, long way away though.