[Closed] Alex's blog - Part 1 of challenge complete - $100 to $1000 personal challenge

Took almost two days for Pokerstars to send my money to Neteller. So just tonight I was able to fund my new FT account.

Played my first tourney there and some tables. Did reasonably in the tourney, placed 1097/8696 on the daily dollar. 1080 payed. I busted out right before the bubble. I was on the BB with 76 of diamonds and the flop was 8d-4-2d, giving me a flush draw and gutshot draw. I immediately went allin, risking the $2.20 I would have won if I had just folded and waited a couple of minutes. But given that there were 3 big stacks playing, that would have cuadrupled me up. So I shoved my small stack in there. Turns out I didn't hit any of my draws. But I was happy with my choice. This is a fundamental shift in the way I've been playing tourneys. I'm starting to be less worried about getting into the money even with a microstack and more willing to risk to get my stack up and make a deeper run into the tourney. I wonder if this is the right choice, but I need to make some changes after the little success I've had as of late. I'm tired of putting in 4,5,6,7 hours for just the smallest prizes. These long tournament runs wear you down physically, I'm beginning to think the small $ I make, is pointless compared to how they wear me down. 6 or 7 hours of my time is definitely worth more then small prizes, so maybe I should begin to play accordingly. Get involved into coinflip situations more often. What's the worse thing that will happen, winning less or nothing? What's the best, that day where "all things come together" and I get to a big prize at last?

I also played some tables, and made 250BB/100. LOL. We'll obviously need a bigger sample size, that's just unreal. I still don't see any PS points for the 8 FT points I earned, I assume they only update daily or something here?

Below this paragraph is the same post I put in the "downswings" forum. Just sad, and so totally frustrating. I make the money again and again and again and again and........................................NOTHING. I'm still waiting for my first big prize. Not only for the money, I need it and want it morally, to consider myself a poker player at last, to get a reward for all the hard work, as recognition for my good play. BUT NOTHING. Goddamn, I'm so unlucky. If I sucked I'd have no problem with this, but I think the overwhelming proof is that I'm a very good tournament player, I can't possibly make the money so much without being any good can I? My strength is definitely the patience department, give me a large starting stack in a normal speed tourney and I'll find my spots every time. I'M SICK OF THESE STUPID $2, 3 or 4 consolation prizes for being "in the money". These prizes are not worth my effort.

No idea what the hell is wrong with me. Can't seem to make a big prize. I get to the money is as many as half of the larger tourneys I play on any given day, but fail to go deep into the money. Today the curse finally seemed to be over on a $1 MTT on Pokerstars (4051 players). Was doing great, already into the top 100 and closing in on the bigger prizes. Then :

JJ vs. 76s (both all in preflop), 76 hits straight on river. The donk tried to bluff from early position. Lost 1/3 of my stack.

AA vs. 66 (all in on turn) , 6 on the river, lose 2/3 of my stack

QQ vs. AQs (all in preflop), AQ hits flush on turn.

Out 63rd for barely $6.07 prize. Which is shit compared to all the time and effort I spend on these tourneys.

Just sad. This loss really made me go an a rage. I was there, I got the cards, and I'm out. -------$·%$/&(" <- insert various screams, bad words, punch the desk, wall, etc. Goddamn, how can I fail to even reach a final table after over a hundred tournaments in the money. SOOOOOOOOOOOO FRUSTRATING.

Been trying to experiment with some different strategies once in the money. Ie today, I was more aggressive then other tourneys, basically any pair I was going all in, even low pairs, even calling other alliners. But as always clanked out in the end before anything important.

First tourney in the money in Full Tilt, 944 today in the daily dollar for $2.20. AQs vs. AKs, A on the flop, so I obviously went all in. Turns out the other guy had AK. Oh well. He also hits his flush on the turn, to shut out the possible miracle Q. I think I'll be playing this one regularly. If not for yesterday's risk on the bubble I'd be 2/2 times in the money so far in Full Tilt.

Full Tilt cash tables are interesting and seem very profitable. Players are very tight in Full Tilt from what I've seen so far, on tables and in tourneys the same play. I was so surprised in the tourneys people with less then 500 chips get blinded out before going all in on anything. Weird. The other funny thing that calls my attention is the funny pot size + a little standard bet people make in Full Tilt. I suppose it means they hit something.

Eliminated from 3 tourneys and lost my entire buy in in two cash tables to with AK, AQ, AJ, A10 hitting a A flop, only for an Ax low caller to have hit two pair on the flop or suckout on turn or river. 5 times in the day!!! SICK.

Just that type of day.

In another tourney, A6 vs. J9, hit A flop, donk bluffs from early position. Shows J9. J turn, 9 river. Lost about half my stack there, still in that tourney, but with 1/2 average stack I'm probably toast. Update, just lost another 1/2 of my stack, AJ vs. K10 small stack allin, hits K on flop.

Then I played my first bigger tourney in Full Tilt, FTOPS $26 Knockout NL Holdem. Started on a high note of course. QQ vs. 55 short stack, both all in preflop. 5 on the flop of course, so I not only lose 1/2 my stack but the $4 bounty. Managed to make my way back to the starting number of chips, only to get knocked out by a donk looking for his flush. Had 66, hit 654 diamons flop, villain raises small, I go all in, he calls. He shows J10, J of diamonds. River is 9 of diamonds. Deja vu, the same as my eliminationg from that SCOOP event, where that dude knocked me out, again with 66 trips on flop, losing to diamonds flush on river. FUCKING SICK. That double up would have put me easily on my way to making the money. Blinds were only like at 80 and the field was already down to 1/2. I was surprised by how soft this tourney was. Wish I had put money in Full Tilt before and played more FTOPS events. Play is way softer then Pokerstars.

In another tourney, A6 vs. J9, hit A flop, donk bluffs from early position. Shows J9. J turn, 9 river. Lost about half my stack there, still in that tourney, but with 1/2 average stack I'm probably toast. Update, just lost another 1/2 of my stack, AJ vs. K10 small stack allin, hits K on flop.

I guess no one complains when luck goes their way! I came back in that tourney with Q3 all in with a 2BB stack, hit the lower leg of 3-7 straight with that 3, and then doubled up again to where at least I was safe, with 3K chips .. stalled there a while .. and from there had some great hands and great luck. AK vs. 99 double up when I got to 5K, and from there have just kept winning and winning pots. 24/276 right now with 25K chips, 2x the average. Let's hope this is finally THE one!!! Got everything going for now! Big stack relatively deep into the tourney.

Really shitty luck. For some reason within 10 minutes of becoming the big stack on my table, the table filled with large stacks. Three 40K+ stacks were moved into my table and another one was created by a guy that quadrupled from 10K. So now I had 4 stacks twice my stack size and now I wasn't even large stack on the table. Right there and then I was sure about what would eventually happen - I'd be out on a big stack cold calling with any junk and hitting a hand. And of course it did.

First lost 9K calling small stack allins with AJs and A7s, not hitting anything any of the two times. One of the stacks went up into the tourney lead with 70K. I'm at 16K with pair of 9's. I raise. Tourney leader at SB calls. 2JJ flop, I go all in, since the probability he'd have one of the remaining J's was virtually null. He shows J9s. FUCK THAT. :f_mad: :f_mad:. Almost predictable one of the large stacks would call me with shit and win, was just a matter of time. HOW CAN I HAVE SO FUCKING BAD LUCK? WHY THE HELL WERE 4 of the top 10 stacks in my table with 200 players left?!?!? THAT FUCKING DOOMED ME. Geez. So frustrating. Why the hell me?

If anything, I guess I should have raised all in directly preflop, with all those big stacks, to reduce somewhat the range they'd call. I guess that's something I did wrong. But my raise was for more then 4x BB, I raised 6xBB, so I guess he was calling me no matter what I did.

It's incredible I keep coming back to poker despite all these setbacks and not having won a significant prize yet in my career. No prize for all this time invested. God this is so shitty. I should be on tilt big time or have stoped playing from being disillusioned/depressed/angry about all the crap I'm taking.

The usual in MTT. Final tabled in a $1.40 NL Holdem Knockout, was 2nd with 4 players left - two small stacks. A small stack calls, I raise with KQ. Flop shows a Q, I raise him all in, he calls. He shows A10, A on the river. I lose 1/3 of my stack. Pair of 10's from the button, I raise all in. Big stack on SB calls, shows AA. Oh well. Shitty luck. So I ended out with 4th place, only $8 prize for my effort. 1st is like $25 on that tourney. So I didn't even get the bigger prizes (1-3rd).

At least, my luck went for the better on cash tables after stalling a couple of days. FINALLY, for the first time since I have elephant, and for the first time in ages, I've began making money on AA and KK. It's been insane and frustrating, for the past couple of months EVERYONE was folding to my AA or KKs and I was raising standard not allining or anything. Finally today doubled up three times on AA and once on KK. Also made two nice flush pots and a nice 99 three of a kind pot. My chart today on elephant is perfect, what you want to see everyday, just goes up and up and up. A nice consistent 40BB/100 over 1000 hands played today.

Currently doing very well in both the $2.20 pokerstars midnight tourneys (23:00 and 0:00). I'll update later if I do anything worth mentioning there. I love playing those two. It's almost impossible not to make the money there. They must be among the fishiest tourneys. What's crazier is that it's only a short stack tourney (1500 chips, but with slow blinds). With such a small starting stack one should have trouble making it to the money consistently, but that's not the case.

2nd or 3rd hand after being in the money on the $2.20 : I limp in with KJo.
Flop : Q109, villain 1 checks, I check (I was sure villain 2 would raise, since he was cont betting raising every time in position). Sure enough he raises, villain 1 calls, I raise all in. Villain 1 calls, villain 2 folds. Villain 1 has A8s flush draw. Of course. Hits his flush. To make it worse my K has 2nd highest flush on river. So sad. Equilator gives me 67% advantage on that flop when I went all in. It's just insane, I get beat and beat and beat on 80%-70% advantage hands. I wish Elephant tracked tourneys. I'd have A SICKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK graph of EV vs. actual wins in MTT. My EVV is surely 3 or 4 times my actual winnings at the very least. I lose like in 80% of those hands I'm 80% ahead. It's crazy.

Out in the other $2.20. Just no luck. Lost my stack gradually calling three short stack all ins (all trash like J8). Of course every single one hit vs. my A10, KQ, etc. then my 33 vs. KJ another hit. Then with my final chips allin, BB calls with 72 vs. my K9, of course the flop has a 2.

Horrible day. Just crap in one tourney after another. Looks like I'll finish this as my first day without making the money in any tourneys since I can't rememeber when. Really nothing else to say. Move on to the next day. Didn't tilt me or anything, but certainly sucked. Had my only sad showing in all of SCOOP today. After making the money or almost making in the other 6 SCOOPs today was a disaster. What happened after the money in all those other tourneys, happened before it now. So I guess in all fairness, IT IS worse to not even make the money.

However, there has been a fundamental change in my mindset and way of playing. When I'm shortstacked, in particular very short stacked, I've really ramped up my level of aggression. I've come to the conclusion that all that effort of being so many hours in these tourneys is not worth it if you're not doing well. So I rather get out soon or be back in it, then grind another hour or two with a dying stack. That's just pointless, my effort, how tired I get, etc. is worth more then just giving full tight agg. effort in a tourney I'm almost out of. Maybe if I were playing really high stakes there would be a point and obligation of sticking to your game plan 100%, but in a $2 tournament it's just not worth it.

Gonna hit some cash tables a little while now.

Great session at the cash tables!! Gawd I'm loving full tilt, it's a cash machine!!! Play is shit compared to Pokerstars - or is it the other way around, so much allin preflop and shit in pokerstars that you can't play your game? Here I'm actually in NL2 and I'm able to play TAG - no guessing whether all those PS preflop all ins are something or not - I'm actually making max profit on a ton of hands where I have the nuts. Plus players play retarded. TOTALLY PREDICTABLE. You just sit when you have the nuts and some always bets pot size!!! RIDICULOUS. Increase tables to 8 at a time. 6 was too easy. No effort really needed to read out players since play is so predictable. FUCK Pokerstars, I'm through the constant bad beats, allins, etc. that fuck up pokerstars play. I'll only use the money I have there for tourneys. My cash games from now on are all on Full Tilt. To cap it off, right now as I was writing, the last table I had open doubled me up - doubled up on 3 of the 8 I was just playing, out breakeven in 4 of them and barely lost 1/4 of my stack in my only losing table. Gotta love this!!

Oh, forgot to say. Busted out in all the late night PS tourneys too. AK vs. KQ hitting Q flop .. all the typical shit. TODAY WAS NASTY IN THE TOURNEYS. I should really stop playing tourneys I just can't seem to profit enough there, but I love them. I love the strategy, patience, etc. But in reality I'm making way more the last month on cash tables then tourneys.

Lol, so much for yesterdays great session, today went pretty much the opposite. Got suckered by a couple of 3 of a kinds. Lost 3 stacks to :
QQ vs. 1010 hitting 3 of a kind flop
AA vs. 99, 9 hits 3 of a kind flop
KK vs. AA (oh well, happens).
Made about a stack and half back though so wasn't that disastrous.
Also tied a KK hitting three of a kind on the flop, only to tie on a two way flush. That sucked so much, in particular because it was off a fish that was throwing his chips left and right. He had K7, hit K top pair.

Then I switched tourney strategy in pokerstars. Ditched the big MTT's for $1 45 man SNG. So far excellent results. I need some adjusting in my strategy though. Kept being a little too aggressive once in the final table, when I should have tightened up a little. One can advance several places just sitting and letting the other eliminated themselves, no need to shove Ax or any draw till there are 3 left. Played 15 and won $21 (5 times in the money). Tons of room to improve. Ratcheting back the aggressiveness once I had a big stack would have put me in the money at least two more times, and made me won higher prizes the times I was in the money. I could have been good for over $30, which would have been a staggering rate. I was also chip leader in one at the bubble, only to run into this streak - all allin preflop - on three consecutive hands!!! : JJ lost to 88 3 of a kind, then AA lost to 1010 3 of a kind, then AQ lost to 66. Oh well.

Lets see tomorrow once I make some adjustments. Very interesting tourneys. Out of the 45 field there must be at least 20 fish, most of them go out in the first 5-10 minutes providing super easy double ups. I doubt there are more then 5 people that know what they're doing in any given tourney.

OK day I guess. Bad at the tables again, good in SNG.

Horrible at the tables. Lost a full stack on two tables and half a stack on 3 more. Shit like :

- AK hits AK8 flop, suckered by 3 of a kind 8's.

- AA hits A35 flop .. some donk had actually called my AA raise with 24o!!! LOL. FUCK THAT!!

- AJ hits AJ flop, AK hits flush on river.

Good in the tourneys though :

14 tourneys $19 won : total profit $3.60 (only twice ITM though). I say it was a good day because it wasn't a good day, but I still won money. Was out early in like 3/4 of the tourneys. Just no cards at all the whole day. And didn't hit any of the aggresive moves I made early. Ie one tables had 88 first hand, allin, called by AQ and AJ. Beat by a Q, but would have been a triple up. Won my first 45 man SNG, so was happy about that!

Had a good day, moderate profit in both SNG and cash tables.
Just wish I had a couple more hours to play per day though. Getting 2-3 hours per day max on weekdays right now. Too much work.

SNG's :
Played 11, made $17, in just two ITM finishes. Not a very lucky day, but profit is profit. Better luck then yesterday, I doubled or tripled up early in at least 5 of the tourneys, to later not make it to the money. Then, of course, my best finish was 2nd, in one where I was nearly dead, but, in turbo late stages just hitting 3 hands in a row take you from small stack to chip leader, pretty wild.

In cash tables :
Lost a couple of stacks, but made some too, in particular a huge pot with AA tripling up. One guy calling all in on turn with gutshot, the other with two pair. Luckily I get another pair on the board for better two pair. Then
suckered on a AQ hitting Q, lost to KK. Then the typical AK hits two pair, suckered by 1010 3 of a kind.

I hope I can put some good hours in these weekend on Full Tilt and make it to Silver on Pokerstrategy. I'm craving reading new articles .. the basic is just basic. Been rereading those the last 2 years already.

Was almost forgetting, I picked on two fish today at the tables, doubled up on one, got $1 off the other. In both cases I had closed all tables to open new ones, but stayed in those two with only that objective and only left the tables when they left. For the first time I'm really beginning to be the shark in most tables. I can honestly be on a table now and classify most players and play them appropriately.

Got home almost at 11PM from work so barely played an hour. Uneventful/breakeven on a couple cash tables. Really good day on the SNG. Barely played 5, but won $21. One first place one third. If I can make this type of profit consistenltly my bankroll will really shoot up. I'm so happy, it looks like I finally found the tourney type that fits my play style. ♠_biggrin: Lol, or maybe these $1 SNG are just flat out easy and fishy!

Roundup of first 4 days :
45 tourneys = $49,50 buyins
Winnings = $78
Total profit = $ 28,50
ROI = 58% ♠_cool:

Was barely able to put in 2 hours tonight, because I had to go out to eat with gf (lol am I starting to cross into the dark side? is POKER now more important then my other half? :f_eek:)

Uneventful in the few cash tables I played.

But in $1.10 SNG :
9 tourneys played
$39 won

And actually I only really played 5, I had 4 tables open when my gf decided we were going out so I had to leave those. Then opened 5 just now when I got back, made final table in all of them : 1 first place 2 second place 1 fourth place 1 ninth place. Now that's a hell of session!!! My pokerstars account is rocketing now. The only thing I made more money on was on those SCOOP tourneys. I wasn't making close to this much per day on cash tables or big MTT's. I've gone from $5 average profit a day to around $20 a day. I had a sick domination of all the tables I was in. Inducing bluffs, maximizing value, stealing in the right situation. I was really on a roll. Of course it helped that virtually all my better then my opponents starting hands actually held up.

New averages since starting :

54 tourneys
$117 winnings
ROI : 97%

I guess I now have to crunch these at least for an entire month and make a better balance then, to know exactly how profitable these are. But so far the results are so encouraging.

Experimented with the $1.10 SNG on Full Tilt, but didn't like it at all. First of all it's not turbo. And I just didn't like the play style, etc. Too many rocks, and a few big stacks bullying everyone and getting larger and larger. So I guess I'll only stick to cash tables at Full Tilt and the SNG's at Pokerstars.

♠_cry: ♠_cry: ♠_mad: ♠_mad: Just a sick day. Really hit the bottom end of the variance spectrum. Finally was able to cruch a good amount of SNG's in the day, but things went horribly. Lost every imaginable 70/30 or worse.
AK vs. A10 KQ vs. K9 JJ vs. K9, etc, etc. etc. then ran into a bunch of overpairs JJ vs. QQ 1010 vs. JJ 99 vs. 1010, my KK's lost to Ax every time except once I think. Out right before the final table a bunch of times. My low-mid pairs in early tourney shoves were beaten virtually every time by the Ax all in fish. Horrible. Just horrible. Didn't even make a final table in my last 15 tourneys or so.

And then of course, my only respectable showing, came in a game where I was down to 200 chips the final table with 27s, only for that to hit a flush, that was good for a quintuple up to 1K, then next hand was 99 for a quadruple up to 4K and I ended up winning there. A pretty fitting win for what my day was, never won when I should have, won in that lone game when I shouldn't have. The other only good finish I had I was 3rd with the top 3 with almost the same stack sizes, AN IDIOT I knew was bluffing bluffed and I called him with AJ, he shows J7. HE HITS A FUCKING 7 on the flop. ARRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH. ♠_mad: ♠_o: and I end up out at 3rd.

So this was my day on SNG :

58 tourneys played
Won $59
Total loss : $4.80

Wow, I actually didn't even lose that much money now that I made the sum I thought I was more the $20 down for the day .. but most of the money missing from my account actually were the $11 1/4 million buying and $5 from two of the $2 tourneys I played during the Sunday 1/4.

In cash tables, minor profit both yesterday and today. (13 bb/100)

To top it off, played Sunday 1/4 million today. QUADRUPLED UP in like my 5th hand ♠_o: PokerStars Game #44511742535: Tournament #312010003, $10+$1 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2010/05/23 15:44:05 ET
Table '312010003 1178' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: kiwibigjim (3510 in chips)
Seat 2: jbjohnnybad (2780 in chips)
Seat 3: Ricardo Buss (2980 in chips)
Seat 4: goekme1 (6475 in chips)
Seat 5: rob8944 (2890 in chips)
Seat 6: alexnmx (12585 in chips)
Seat 7: Uanaman (2700 in chips)
Seat 8: seeyoudance (2970 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 9: ARJAYH (2570 in chips)

Stack: largest 13640, smallest 10, average 3170
Your current position is 3 out of 23125
Time bank balance is 90 seconds
in 7 min blinds 25/50
For more information see Tournament Lobby

Only to throw away around 2K chips acting like chip leader (trying lots of steals and pushing people any time I had anything or saw weakness). I guess it looks so easy when you see chip leaders pressuring people - and I guess as a TAG I'm a perfect target for chip leaders - , but I evidently didn't choose the right spots and/or players to pressure and just lost chips. Then came the debacle. The guy to my left, who was defending his blinds ferociously to my steals (ie on an A4 attempt I made he called my 3x raise with 56s, hit the low card of the flop and didn't even fold to my pot size cbet on the flop. That guy unfortunately more then doubled up in the next few hands and now had the 2nd biggest stack. Probably 3 or 4 blinds later I had 77 from the button, so I raised, he shoved. I thought it was a resteal, given his previous defense, so I called. He flipped QQ. Lost 8K off my stack and was back to my starting 3K chips. JUST SAD, not sure if pathetic, but was just so stupid. I could have sat out after that quadruple up and still reached mid range money. Lost my remaining stack on QQ vs. AK, K on the flop. Most of all, I was very uncomfortable, that was the main factor that led to my errors. In barely a week I've gotten used to the turbo style short tourneys, and sitting there doing nothing is a whole other ballgame. Calling a raise/shove with a pocket pair is almost a reflex now. Maybe I'll just call big MTT quits completely for now. It's really hard to readapt to that playing style with what I'm playing now.

At least I hope the experience will be of some use in the future .. it was actually the first time I get stack that big and stop playing TAG to start pressuring people as I see chip leaders normally do. So in some way, when I had so many chips in my hand all of a sudden, I didn't know what to do with them. I think I ended up in middle terrain which was useless. I didn't keep up my TAG play, but I didn't play as aggressively as I should have as chip leader, I was somewhat hesistant, making irregular bets here and there, not continuing others. I was really just fumbling around with no clear strategy .. and I'm sure that kills you in poker. When you play with no game plan you're dead, and I had gone out of my gameplan and hadn't even taken up a new game plan, I was playing with no game plan.

Damn, seems like I can never get everything going at the same time. Had my best day ever on cash tables, almost doubled my account (today was a holiday so I crashed the tables all day long). But at the same time had sick loses on the SNG's. So funny how I fixed some leaks in one place but went out of control in another area. ♠_confused:

In cash tables :
- Stopped calling so many of those fishy cbets when I have AK and stuff like that. Seeing my stats I concluded I was losing more calling these then what I was making when catching the villain with nothing.
- Started defending my blinds with resteals, so far every single one has been successful
- Started being the aggressor with low pair on flops like J5J. Instead of playing defensive and letting the villain always make a bet and get me out of those hands (mainly when I'm on the blinds or with suited aces.
- Have been being a bit more aggressive in some instances where I was ahead, and have successfully been able to get the villain to commit the chips I wanted

In SNG :
- Loosened up too much in early stage and got into tons of marginal situations :
- Calling small stacks with just Ax
- Calling even all ins that were almost my stack size with KQ, AJ, even A10.

I finally corrected these flaws a the end of the session, but wasn't able to make any good money (out 4 times at 8th - 7 paid, right out of the money). Then out 5th the only one I cashed where I was 2nd, with JJ, chipleader shows KK. But at least I'm back on the right path.

Final results of the day in SNG ♠_mad: :
36 tourneys played
$6 won.
Lost almost $33. Wiped out a good part of the profit of all of the week. ♠_mad: Wow. Crazy. Will need to look for ways to avoid this in the future. For starters going to implement a daily stop limit, $10 losses and I stop for the day on SNG. I now see this streak actually started yesterday. It was no coincidence I hadn't made the final table the last 15 tourneys I played yesterday, there I had already loosened up and was playing like this. So I actually had a streak of :

50 tourneys played
$6 won. Loss almost $50.

WOW. Damn. That can definitely not happen again. It's crazy how fast things happen. ♠_frown: Destroyed an awesome week I had on SNG with less than a day of suboptimal play.

OK, definitely turned things around quickly. I still have to determine what exactly happened that SNG losing day. Tilt? Played for too long in a single day and that slowly deviated me from ideal play? Anyway, today was back to the W column in SNG and made some too in cash tables. Got deep into virtually every SNG I played today. So I'm definitely back. Such a shame I dented my account with that bad day. ♠_cry:

SNG :
10 tourneys played
$26 won

Would have won more if not for a sick KK vs. 44 suckout (4 on the turn) right before a final table - I was the 2nd biggest stack and the biggest stack called my all in - and out at the bubble in another with AJ vs. A8, A8 hits backdoor straight on the river. Oh well.

Reached my first 10K hands with Elephant.

bb/100 : 13/100

So I guess I'm doing well, someone had said in a thread I made, that 10bb/100 and above was good.

Analyzed by hand the things I'm not doing well.

Found some leaks :

- KJo is my losingest hand. No more limping in with KJ even KJs.
- QQ is my 2nd losingest hand, but it's just just variance and suckouts from analyzing all the losing situation, not like I kept betting on Axx or Kxx flops with QQ .. two stacks lost to AA, one to an A5o idiot calling preflop and hitting a 55x flop, another a 97o idiot called my raise and hit a 747 flop, and sucked out on 77 hitting 792 flop in another, and finally a Q10 idiot hitting a straight in another. I guess just bad luck there.
- AA isn't my winningest hand, KK is. It's because I slowplayed or didn't bet aggressively enough with AA and gave the opponent free/cheap cards, leading to 2 stacks lost, where the villain would have almost surely folded to the bet I should have made.
- Virtually no steals - will begin to steal every time I'm in CO, BU with no previous callers or raisers with 77 and above, A10 and KQ and on BB or SB with Ax, KQ and low pairs.
- Virtually no resteals - already fixed that 2 days ago, now I'm restealing any time I have something decent.
- A10 is a losing hand (small losses). No more limping or calling with A10, even A10s. I've been tempted to call some 3x or min raises with A10. Not a profitable situation seems
- AJo is a losing hand (just a few cents) - I'm calling too many raises with AJ instead of folding. I should only play AJ when I'm the aggressor.
- AQo is a losing hand. I think this is the same situation as AJ, AQ isn't a strong enough hand to call raises by others.
- AKo is a losing hand. Again might be calling too many raises, or being too passive. I should either be folding or reraising with AK and taking the initiative. Just cold calling raises with AK means I have to fold any time I don't hit the flop. Actually all the loss is a stack lost to a maniac I called with AK, his 105o ended up hitting a 5 on the flop. And then 4 bet, where 3 less then full stacks ended up getting all in, so I said what the hell, let's see what happens. QQ hitting a Q flop ended up winning that one. Another was AK too and another was K10. So I guess it wasn't that bad a call.
- AKs, AQs, AJs are winning hands .. not sure what this means since their offsuited peers are losing hands.

Good points :
- I've played all pocket pairs except QQ for profit
- I've played all suited aces for profit (Axs as a set is my 3rd most profitable hand behind AA and KK.
- I've played suited connectors for profit