THE FALL

It seems I am preordained to stay within a certain +/- variance over the course of any given month. I won two tournaments during the first half of October and I was playing very well and expecting a big five-digit month. I am still playing well but the cards haven't been falling right and I have dropped two grand over the past two days.

First came the Sunday events. I played a $215 at Stars, a $535 at Tilt, and a $162 at PokerRoom. I was cruising in the Stars event which started with a $10k stack. I was chipping up steadily until I was around $15k and I raised an unopened pot from the button with pocket tens. The small blind called the raise and we took a 235 flop. I was sure I was ahead so I checked to give him a chance to make a play.

He made a huge bet and I decided to take it down with a humongous check-raise. I didn't quite put him all in but the implication was clear that I was willing to play for all his chips. He called with AJ and turned a four to take the pot. Upon further reflection, it was not that insane a play by him as he had ten outs and roughly a 40% chance of winning against my overpair. Maybe I should have just bet out on the flop then folded on the turn when he obviously spikes his straight. I guess I didn't anticipate that he would practically commit himself with such a huge flop bet, giving him the proper odds for the hail mary.

Well that knocked me down to size and I never recovered as the blinds increased soon after and my cards dried up. Finally, with blinds at $200/400, I took a stab with A8 by pushing all in from early middle position with about $4300. Two other players contested and got all in and I thought I was done until one guy flipped over 66 and the other JTs. I was actually in pretty good shape to triple up but I couldn't catch and the sixes held up.

I was doing fairly well in the Tilt event too and even got Stuart Patterson (bounty) at my table while I was the chip leader. I called his late position raise from the big blind with 72h and turned a flush on him. I got some money from him on the turn and could have gotten more with a value bet on the river but I decided to put him all in just in case he had designs on calling which he didn't.

A few orbits later I was coming off a big loss after running into aces when Stuart pushed all in from early position with his relatively short stack. I had 88 and since he had a $500 bounty on his head, I pushed in as well. Another player had KK and got the bounty. Patterson would have beat me anyways when his KT finished with two pair.

In the PokerRoom tourney, I made it to the top 25% by getting lucky repeatedly (AJ>AA+QQ) but I went down with AK v 99 before making the money. It was likely my final event at my beloved PokerRoom who made real money games inaccessible to Americans the next day.

So I did my usual donking off of close to a grand on Sunday. On Monday I set about to earn it back. I played numerous STTs and HU events and did nothing but lose. In the three SNGs I lost with AA, QQ, and QQ. In one of the HU games, I actually lost with Q3 v Q3 when we got all in on a Q53 flop and two diamonds peeled off to give him all the chips. It was one of those days where I just couldn't do anything but lose. I decided to take Tuesday off even though I am not really playing badly but bad beats are like the gateway to bad play and I don't care to cross that threshhold.