Friday night, went to play a $10 tournament at my parents' place. Horrible players, and I've finished top two every time I haven't received some horrible bad beat. That wasn't the kind of night it was. I lost about 80% of my chips when I flopped a set of 5's on a 10-5-4 board. I eventually lost the hand to 10-7 when the turn and river came a 3 and 6. Suck. Lost the rest of it with AK against the same guy when HE flopped a set of 5's and I couldn't go runner-runner on him. Oh well. Went home to play PLO in not the best frame of mind. I had some crappy situations, lost a few pots where I was a decent favorite, but I also played badly in a number of spots, especially in 3- and 4-bet pots preflop, and my lessons cost me a little over 4 buy-ins. Bleh.

Won about half of that back today, and I'd had a decent run before that, so I finish January up the glorious sum of $20! Yes!

I ran some numbers, but without a program like PokerTracker, they're just estimates (I know hours played,...

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Last time I went to play live, I had two pretty stupendous pots when I was dealt AA twice in three hands.

Typical $1/$3 live game. Two people limp, and the guy on my right (with about $150) raises to $40! I look down at my red Aces and consider flatting, but then decide not to get fancy with these idiots and just shove my $110 stack. The guy on my left snap-shoves like he can't get his chips in fast enough. Folded around to the original raiser who reluctantly calls. At this point, I'm wondering if the guy on my right could possibly have the black Aces, because the way he was acting, I would have thought I was dead with Kings. I flip my Aces, the guy on my right flips Queens (about what I expected), and then the snap-shover shows JJ? JJ???? An innocuous board ending with an Ace on the river triples me up.

Two hands later, I raise to $18 with AA (again) after one limper. To my surprise, I get 5 callers! The flop was something benign like 9-6-2 with two spades (I have the Ace...

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January never seems to be a good month for me in Poker. So far, I've had one abysmal live session where I lost about $240, and I'm down another $50 online from doing stupid stuff. On top of that, I'm wondering if maybe I've hit a plateau in my game and I'm at a level where maybe I was good enough to win a year ago, but that the game has intensified enough that I'm maybe only around break even now in some of the games (not live, but online).

So, I'm thinking of breaking down and doing two things I had previously said I wouldn't: join a training site, and get PokerTracker. Now, overall, I think the Poker world would be better for intelligent people if there were no training sites and no PokerTracker, but the fact is that all the really good players are using these tools, and many of the games are such now that I am at a disadvantage by abstaining from these things. Something to think about anyway.

I have a new computer now, and I'm happy to say it works well, and I preserved all...

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Every year I usually do this, and make some ridiculous goals for the next year that I never accomplish. So this year I'll keep it simple: my goal is to play winning Poker, and only play when it is enjoyable. There, simple enough, and I might even accomplish it. :)

2008 was a busy year, so I'll take it month by month.

Jan/Feb: these months run together, because until Feb. 15, I was still in the hell that was my job. I played a little bit on the weekends here and there, and tilted off like $1400 online and live. Once I was finished with work, I took the rest of the month off to rebuild the pieces of my life.

March: this was my single biggest winning month of the year. I won a nice heap playing $1/$3 NL and $4/$8 limit in the live games. I made up the deficit from the first two months and got back on track. Finished the month up $1500.

April: here, my live results started to taper off, variance kicked in, and I lost a small amount. I think at this point I started playing...

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Twice with Aces on a pretty dry board. Once I get it in with top set, and I'm like a coin flip at best. Get it all in with trip Q's vs short stack who for some reason raised with a crap hand and hit the least likely boat ever? Even though I won two of these, felt like I was gonna burn.

PokerStars Game #23014467899: Omaha Pot Limit ($0.10/$0.25) - 2008/12/17 16:49:21 PT [2008/12/17 19:49:21 ET]
Table 'Mundleria V' 6-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: Turn_Prophet ($24.50 in chips)
Seat 2: WsopSCARFACE ($97.80 in chips)
Seat 3: TBirdBaller ($25 in chips)
Seat 4: Nacho Love ($45.25 in chips)
Seat 6: 5SpeedLimit5 ($24.15 in chips)
5SpeedLimit5: posts small blind $0.10
Turn_Prophet: posts big blind $0.25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Turn_Prophet [Ah As Ks Jh]
GATERDONE joins the table at seat #5
WsopSCARFACE: calls $0.25
TBirdBaller: raises $0.85 to $1.10
Nacho Love: folds
5SpeedLimit5: folds
Turn_Prophet: raises $2.55 to $3.65
WsopSCARFACE: folds
TBirdBaller:...

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