My bad luck streak continues, as not only have the cards been mostly bad and people are making dumb calls, I'm now running into monsters everytime I make a move.

I played a $1 MTT earlier and was up and down but never really up by much, basically never getting a hand and when I finally got AA I was UTG, raised 3xBB and all fold. Sat around waiting and eventually my stack was around 1600, average was 3700 and blinds were 75/150 I think. Few people call to me in SB, I raise 4xBB with 55 and get 1 caller. Flop comes T22 and I push, he calls and shows me KK.

Following that MTT I played a little cash for fun to cool off. Sat for about 30m and nothing really happened good or bad but a really weird hand did come up. I'm up about $0.60 and basically card dead when I get AA in the CO. Had three original callers so I raised about 6xBB and button goes All-in for his $1 stack, rest fold and of course I insta-call. Flop comes Ks5s8s, turn is a Jd and river is a Ts. Yup, he held the As and wins...

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Sigh, so many bad calls paying people off :( Haven't had any luck at all today, played three tourneys.

Tourney #1 - $1 45-person SnG
Result: 30th, getting bad cards and my flush ran into a FH. Not much I could do here, just terrible luck.

Tourney #2 - $1 MTT, 800+ w/ top prize of $180
Result: 170th, 9 spots out of the money. I didn't really care about just getting in the money as really only the final table gives a nice profit. Anyway, I'm dealt QQ in MP, having been card dead most of the tourney I was down to about 4700 which was short-stacked. Blinds about to go up to 200/400, average stack around 8000. Anyway, one caller ahead of me and I push getting called by mid-stack with A9o (WOW) from the SB. Of course, he hits his A and I'm done.

Tourney #3 - $1 45-person SnG
Result: 25th, again due to people making dumb calls. This tourney was Exactly like the MTT, a bunch of call machines. That meant it was nearly impossible to steal any pots or blinds so I was essentially left to...

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Well it's only midway through the evening, but I'll still post and either edit later and make another post if anything big happens.

I'm 2/2 ITM since I sat down and looked at what was wrong with my game. Today I played another 45 person $1+0.20 SnG on Stars and finished in 4th, something I'm quite proud of and I'll explain below. Anyway, I plan to play in a $1 MTT later tonight, hopefully I can bring my success to that, or I may decide to stick with what works and do another SnG or two.

The SnG today was brutal and I mean brutal for cards. Early on I got KK and a short-stack pushed and I took the pot but I only took about 500, moving me to 2000, while the average was already at 2200. Few hands later I dropped a few chips and sat pretty low for a long time. Around level 4 or 5 I got AKo in UTG, raised 3xBB and SB goes All-in. I have to make that call and do, happily watching his AQo lose.

From there, at about 3200 chips, I didn't win a single hand after the flop until the final...

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Know what feels great? When you identify a hole in your game, make an effort to correct it and see yourself making positive gains. That's how today went for me so far.

Over the past few days I realized a huge hole in my game, something that was costing me a lot of SnG/MTT entries. I was basically misplaying premium starting hands, especially from early position, when I was short-stacked in the middle-late stages. Essentially, with a mediocre hand I knew when to fold and didn't get caught up with the hand, but with premium hands I continually watched myself stubbornly refuse to accept that my KK, AK, etc. was beat. Well, after losing money on this problem yesterday I sat down and decided to read up again and focus on fixing that hole in my game - it was to be my main focus in my next tourney.

To do this I started reading Harrington on Hold'Em v1, a book I had not read yet. I have all three volumes now and they are to be my reading material for this week. Anyway, I found Harrington's...

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Played a few SnGs tonight and an MTT and was card dead in every single one. In each of them I had nothing the entire time and whenever I'd get a hand I'd either get beat, get no action, etc. Last tournament I was in I had three playable hands the entire time (AQo from LP, bad flop and knew I was beat - KK, no action preflop - AQo, hand I went out on as I was short-stacked and went all-in preflop and lost to 22)

Been pretty frustrating, I'm not really sure how to fix the problem. If I get a few decent hands early I can often play very well the entire way, often getting into the top tier of players. But, if I'm completely card dead I find it hard to get any momentum until I actually get a hand as I don't want to take ugly risks. I suppose I'll need to look at my early tournament strategy and see if I'm playing too tight but I really don't think I am. I'm tight but aggressive and tonight I just didn't get anything to play with and just sat around chip average everytime, eventually trying...

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