My last post I talked about how I ran bad and whined like a little girl. I ran average and made a couple of final tables and went fairly deep either bubbling the ft or money in some other mtts. I didn't make any money but it felt good to stop the 27 mtt cashless streak.

I'm relegated to the fact that poker players, especially mtt players are going to have some sick, sick, swings. The best way to combat that is to get as much quality volume as you can. I've started eating better and exercising which has improved my mental sharpness and mood.

As long as I'm playing good, I'll practice good roll management, and get in as much volume as possible. You're going to run bad, it happens. This latest downswing was bad as I just moved up stakes as I play more $20-30 then I used to. Kinda sick to blow $100 on mtt entry fees when you're used to blowing $50.

I'll see ya on the virtual felt.

I don't know if anyone else feels this way, mtt poker doesn't seem all that fun at the moment. After my biggest cash last month I can't get anything going, I have trips bvb, I'm up against a boat, I have trips bvb the other guy gets there and ties with a worse kicker or boats up. And more bad beat blah blah blah blah. I get a large percentage of my volume in on my days off probably at least 50%, despite that I haven't played a single mtt today or yesterday. I haven't cashed in the last 22 mtts I've played some due to a blow up, most losing a big pot with less then 20bb with hands like AK or AQ regardless if I'm ahead/flipping/behind.

I took 3 days off played a great session and had nothing to show for it except to double up a couple of donks who bluffed with npnd and got there. I'm probably being results oriented, in fact I am, it's just really tough to fire up some mtts when absolutely nothing works. Maybe I should take more then 3 days off, maybe a week would be good. I just feel I put so much time and effort into getting better that I owe it to myself to play.

Poker is a strange game, especially mtts, you can do everything right for a week, month, 3 months and see no good results. In almost anything else whether it be chess, basketball, or golf you put in the work, improve and you see results right away. Either you improve to be good and your handicap decreases or you don't put the work in and you get worse. In poker you can play absolutely horrible and make money at least in the short term, the same is not true in most any other sport.

That's all from emo boy.

I had a pretty decent month, OK my best month ever. I'm a little jaded that I was a coin flip or a better flop away from having a HUGE month. I ended up $615 from stts and mtts this month with a $50 bonus minus $30 from cash for a total profit of $640. I never thought when I started playing online poker 2 years ago that I would be disappointed with a $640 month, this is a weeks wages for most people. I got deep in 2 50/50s and a 24/24. I had my biggest cash ever around 1.3k and I feel like I'm playing the best poker ever.

I've met a bunch of great guys that I consider friends through 2p2. My game has improved by leaps and bounds since meeting these guys and exchanging aim sns. It's nice to have intelligent hh convos, something that is nearly impossible at 2p2's ssmtt forum. It helps having guys that play/think as much if not more about their game as I do and they are a click away on aim. There is no one that lives around me that I can talk poker or even understands the shit mtt players go through, I'm talking about the crappy cashless streaks and getting 5 outed in a big pot.

My arrow is pointing up, that I'm sure of, not being cocky. My biggest crutch is that I need to learn patience. I've had a taste of how successful I can be at $50+ mtts, I just have to wait for my bank roll to grow. It's weird, I feel a desperation if that's the right word to play as much as I can so that I can build my roll, move up and repeat as I'm not getting younger(lol, I'm only 30). I wish I were lucky enough to devote 6 months without work to see how fast I could build my bank roll.

I guess that's enough rambling for one post.

I'm making this entry about 48 hours after I took 4/560ish runners in the stars $33/5k. This cash gave was my biggest, $1270. I had a $500 coin flip when I got it in preflop vs a 15bb stack that I had well covered with AQ vs 88. I flopped trips, he hit the 8 on the river. I then tried a resteal and follow up cbet that didn't work. I ended up going out with about 17bbs when I shoved over the maniac buttons perfunctory raise with a perfect resteal hand 89s, he happened to have a hand ATs and he flopped trips and I was drawing dead on the turn. I changed up my strategy instead of playing a lag small ball style I decided to play power poker with an m <= 10 from the last 30 people in.

It worked very well. I don't know how many times I pushed, it was alot, I got called in three spots. JJ>TT, AK>AJ, AQ>88. I went from being 11/14 to being 2/8 until I lost my AQ vs 88 4 handed. I ran really bad at the final table, I had AQ 2x that saw a flop, folded once, and had to call with tp vs trips for a decent pot. I had 99 2x and had to fold when a tight player called then led into me and when I got called by 2 players and saw an Aqx flop.

This score is HUGE for me. I now have a very solid 3k roll. I started that day with a 1.8k roll which meant I was a couple weeks of running really bad to having to move down to playing nothing higher then $11 mtts. I've scraped my $550 staking myself experiment since I hit this nice score. I'm just going to stick with buy ins up to $33 and maybe play one or two $55 mtts.

I played 8 mtts last night. I cashed in 3 of them, I was so close to a 4 digit score. I finished 60th in the ftp 24/24 for $69, 160/1179 of the stars 50/50 for $83, 17/1013 of the ftp 50/50 for $355. I essentially busted from the ftp 50/50 when I raised AQ 2.5x with 14bbs in mp. I got called by a donkey who kept calling me and I'd have to lay down when my AQ, KQ didn't connect in 2 other pots. The flop was J8x. I over bet the pot ai as vs this guy it was goin in whether he knew it pf or not. The guy calls with JTs. I don't mind his flop call as my hand screams my 2 big cards missed, I just don't understand calling a 2.5x raise with JTs with 13bbs.

One of my friends said I shove with an M of around 10 around the final table, I'm going to rethink my position on this as I like to make standard raises until I get to 12/13 bbs. Maybe it's not so bad if I have a couple of idiots that will call me light. All in all I'm pretty happy with my play, it's so sick that in the ftp 50/50 there were about 9 good opr players and only a few made the final table. Once we got down to 30 players in the ftp 50k I took a stab from the blinds 2x on flops and had to fold, raised KQ, AQ and missed them both, cbet one of the hands had to fold them both. I only won hands that didn't see a flop or I was short and shoved pf.

I made a deal with myself, I'd take $550 of money from out of my roll and use that to pay for half of a $55. My roll is around 2k, so basically it gives me a chance to play 20 of these donk filled 50ks and a shot at a very nice score. Out of 5 50/50s I've cashed in 3, and I finished 13th and 17th in 2 that I cashed. I'm just in need of a bit more luck to make the ft in one of these. Even a 2k score would be a really huge shot to my bank roll.