As I alluded to in the thread in General, April wasn't a great month for me, nor for a lot of players if I am reading the general consensus. A combination of bad luck, bad play, and distractions ended my month in the red. As if that weren't bad enough, I blew off $150 online yesterday on pure silliness.

I played the $11 rebuy, and never really got rolling. In the first hour, I lost an 11k pot when my 98 got outdrawn by Q4 after we got all-in on a Q-8-8-6 board. In the second hour, I had a great chance to get rolling when I got in a 4-way all-in pot for 33k! I had KK an d was up against QQ, JJ, and TT! Unfortunately, the board ran A-4-4-T-x and I won only the side pots. I never had more than 20,000 in the tournament. I had my last chance to get up past the 20k barrier when I snap-called with A8s against a push from an ultra loose-aggressive small blind. Of course, the board came K-x-x-K-A and I got crippled. I have to ask, do they always have to get there?

From there, I made some money back playing cash games (bad, bad, bad), playing some $2/$4 O8 and Triple Draw of all games. I made back all my cash, and that should have been fine, but oh no. I got bored, went back later to play some $2/$4 HORSE, and promptly lost a bunch back. Then I lost a little more when my luck in Triple Draw turned bad (wicked swings in that game). With my last $72, I made the worst decision of the night. I sat down at a 100NL HU table. Players who specialize in that game are tremendously aggressive, and I was playing with scared money. Despite this, I trapped the guy several times, and actually ran it up to about $250. I was just about to quit, and then I flopped top two pair on a 7-5-3 board. Of course, the guy rolled a gutter ball on me, I lost a big pot, and I chased my losses. Because the guy never missed a flop after that, I couldn't crawl back, and I eventually went bust.

Disgusted with myself and my Mike Matusow-esque behavior, I issued myself a 7-Day ban from PokerStars. I just really, really cannot focus when I play online. I want so badly to do well in the tournaments and get practice, but it just isn't working. Maybe I'm not serious enough or not wired for it, but I just, for lack of a better term, blow up when the pressure is on. Fortunately, I've managed my money well enough so that this isn't a crippling blow to my BR, but I need to get out of this tailspin and just focus on playing live. I will spare everyone the "quitting Poker" bit, because I'm not quitting. I am determined to avoid my bad habits, or change them around to success. Really, I should just be focusing on playing as much live NL as I can, because that is where my money comes from. I can't be all things in Poker, at least not now, so I should really focus on building some capital if I want to be serious.

There is a lot more to success at Poker than knowing how to play. If it wasn't for tilt, bad habits, and distractions from my real goal, I would probably be doing much better in this game.