I was looking at desktops online and talking to Adanthar when he mentioned the $200 turbo at 5 PM and the $100 satellite to the $1k at 5:30 (both on Full Tilt). I entered them, won the seat into the 1k, so I decided to play poker tonight.

I busted that and the 100k in typical fashion (squeeze with a big pair, run into a bigger one-- yes, in both tournaments). I still had the urge to play, so I sat in at 3/6 NL HU on Cake and waited.

And then I dropped $1800 over the course of 80 minutes. At one table. Most of it to a guy who was cover-your-eyes awful but coolered me three different times. If I don't lose KQ to TT on a 77TKQ board in a reraised pot, or 88 to AA (vs. a guy who instacalled a 4 bet shove with A2o), or JT to K9 on a 99KQ board, then maybe things are different.

I obviously overestimated the importance of that first winning day; as it turns out, that's been my only winning day in the past month. Now, I haven't been playing much at all, but stuff like this is discouraging. I'm trying to rebuild my bankroll, and become a consistent winner, and all the progress I had made on that front has been erased, and then some, in the last month.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I'm not even sure what games I can beat at this point, since everything I've done up until now can more or less be chalked up to variance.

I think I'm still capable of winning-- and I need to be, what with no other employable skills-- but something has been missing lately.

Was a success! I turned a nice day's profit, mixing in some 2/4 and 3/6 NL with some 30/60 limit. I think the lion's share of the money was made at limit, but I turned a tidy profit at NL as well.

I didn't play too many tables, so I don't feel like I'm in "grinding" mode yet. When I move in for good, I'll finally get a desktop setup, which should allow me to settle into multitabling nicely.

Just nice to come back with a win. Probably only going to play sporadically for the next week or so.

Had a few minutes free here, and I wanted to put this up for a while.

I posted the hand history of my win in the Stars $55 50k guaranteed on PokerXFactor. I opened a thread on 2+2 to discuss it; you can post questions you have on anything in it here or there.

PokerXFactor link (viewer only)
PokerXFactor Link (Hand History Analyzer)
2+2 Discussion Thread

On a side note, we seem to have found a place to live, and hopefully we'll get it finalized and moved in after the weekend. When that happens, you can expect the pace to pick up around here.

Greetings from Houston, TX. I'm in Texas for a few days; I'm going to look at places to live in Austin and take a few days off from poker.

My laptop crashed, unfortunately, and I had to replace it, so I lost a couple of the things I was working on, but I have some other ideas I'll flesh out when I get back off the road, and probably a trip report from Turning Stone, too.

I had a pretty brutal week this week. I know I posted about the win in the Stars 50k earlier, but I'm pretty sure nothing else went right.

I got annhilated the last few days in tournaments, and had a hideous cash session on Saturday night which all combined left me overall loser for the trip and blew up a lot of the work I had done rebuilding my online bankroll. I still have plenty enough that I don't have to drop down, but it was very discouraging. Since my goal for the upcoming future is to settle down for a few months and play online, living off what I've already taken offline while I grind out hands and move up through the ranks, "building an online bankroll" is a major part in me making money and getting good enough to move up to the games I want to play and want to be rolled for.

The live tournaments were a major disappointment. Here are two bustout hands that best sum it up:

$300 6-max tournament. Blinds 150/300/50. I start this hand somewhere around 13k. I open 33 UTG to 925; aggressive kid to my left calls and the BB calls as well. Flop is a beautiful AK3 with two clubs and a spade. Action time! I bet 1600, the kid folds, and the BB asks me how much I have left. It's about 10-11k more, so he throws out 6000. I move in after a couple of seconds and he calls and tables AQ. Turn K, river K. And that's it.

$1000 penultimate event. Still in the first level, 5k starting stacks. Two limpers at 25/50; I limp the CO with 43cc. Al Krux limps the button (he is not relevant to this hand, except to say that it was, in fact, Al Krux); blinds complete and check. Flop comes down Ac Ax 5c. SB leads 200, all fold to me, and I call because I think my implied odds are pretty big here. Turn is gin-- red 2. He checks, I bet 425, he makes it 1500, and I shove because he's going to put it in with any ace. He makes an exasperated sound, then says, "fine, I call"-- and tables A2, with the 2c.

After all this I decided to skip the 5k main event. I was tired of shelling out money to run bad.

While all this was going on, the FTOPS took place, and I played as many events as I could-- and cashed in zero. Another major series of events, another complete brick. I've been doubting this tournament thing lately. Meanwhile, I got to watch lots of people I know make significant scores both live and online, and I'm happy for them, but man, it's frustrating.

Next up: I might be indisposed for a few days while I move around and get settled. Once I do, though, I"ve got a series of strategy posts I've been working on, which I hope will be enlightening with regards to strategic approaches and decisions in tournaments (and the reasoning behind them) that I feel is often overlooked.