Down and Up

I was in a slump for a couple of days. On Sunday and Tuesday I lost a lot. Maybe upwards of $400 during those two days. Tough to do at 2-6 spread limit and 4/8 with a kill while playing pretty tightly.

It was one of those weird experiences when no flushes or straights come through, no matter how many outs one has. Or I would flop a flush or straight, only to be outdrawn on the river when an opponent had stayed in with two pair.

I realized, during those losing sessions, that I had two major leaks in my LHE game that I needed to fix immediately. One is easy. I shouldn't play over eight hours. I shouldn't push myself. My memory goes into the toilet, my concentration is bad, and I'm tired. I CAN play longer than eight hours, I proved that to myself during those three O8 tournaments at Orleans. But I shouldn't. The games after midnight during the week aren't that good, anyway. The players, by default, are playing much more closely to correct.

My second leak, which is much worse, and tougher to fix, is not playing good draws strongly enough. I didn't realize just how much I was losing by winning small pots when my draw did come in, but losing many other pots when it didn't. Before, my wins had always covered this leak. I was repaid by my winning draws after losing on draws that didn't come through. Regardless of how I played those draws, I always had enough "left over" to repay the ones that fizzled out.

Well, when I'm not hitting at all, it's easier to see that I'm never quite getting paid back when I win a hand. If I played better post-flop, I would never let this happen. Sure, I'm going to have losing sessions, we all do. But I could definitely see that my wins were smaller by not playing monster draws stronger and building a big pot.

So yesterday I finally won again.

The freeroll was at 6:30, and I was out in the fifth hand. One cannot play this freeroll very tightly, or it's a losing proposition. We are given only 1k in chips, and the structure is 50/100, doubling every 15 minutes. Just trying to hold on means we get to the final two tables, maybe even the final, but have no chips and end up getting zippo (only top 5 get paid). That is time wasted when we could be playing cash games or be somewhere else. The promotions at RS are so good that it is a shame to waste two hours in some dumb freeroll where even if we make no deal, and stick it out to the very end, we can only win a max of $500.

Right after I busted out, I went to the $2-6 full kill game (it's been getting started more frequently, and it's sure better than no kill, when the 4/8 isn't running). Within about ten minutes, I was called for the "hot seat," which gets me into next week's freeroll, lol. Boy, it almost seems like I'm back at AOL, and experiencing the golden handcuffs. They keep stringing us along by throwing money at us every time we simply want to leave.

Anyway, I won some dough there. Eventually the 4/8 started back up, as tourney players busted out. I broke even there. Then that game broke up for a NLHE game. I broke even there (literally like $1 down, lol). Then that game broke and we went back to 2-6 kill. I lost about $20 there.

Altogether a better session. We got there early, didn't play after midnight, and both won a little dough. Glenn won more than me, and at one point had over $400 in front of him on a freaking 2-6 game!!! Go Glenn!

See you next time,

Felicia :)
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Last night:

-$10 (Net Tournament Winnings)
-$7 (4/8 kill HE)
-$0 (2/5 NLHE)
$49 (2-6 HE Kill)
=32 Net winnings for Wednesday, August 23, 2006

(Total saved for new car pre-August 15 $2500. Current total $1900 [-$400 for Sun/Tues])