First day of holdem is complete. What a waste of time, though it could've been much worse.

I played about 2 hours, got in 238 hands with 2 tables at a time. I was down about $20 after the first hour, half of it on a bluff. I thought it was a good bluff in a good situation (two pair on the board, one was queens and I made a PF raise), but someone with a legitimate hand, a flush, called. It'll teach me to try and make a play on these people. This guy posted out of turn under the gun! I guess that should've given me a hint to not try and play him. I also lost another $7 hand to the same person when I raised PF 5x in late position when it was folded to me with AJo and he just called from the SB with AQs and an ace flopped. He insta-called my first $2 bet which should've given me a clue on a non-drawing board, but I went ahead and made a $4 bet on the turn which he insta-called again. At least he checked the river letting me check it as well. I should've saved $4 here.

I started to make a comeback after that, though, and was even in the black for awhile. Quads and a top set really helped me out there. I managed to finally get back in the red during my last hand though, dropping down to a 20 cent loss for the day.

Unfortunately I didn't stick to my plan about playing later on at night. I kept switching tables because I was having a heck of a time finding a table with a VP$IP of over 20. I thought that maybe at Party, with no bonuses running, I wouldn't have that big of a problem finding good $25 tables even in the late afternoon-early evening but I was wrong. I'm going to stick to my plan after this and start playing as late as I can.

On the plus side though, I did play a short session of stud before my holdem session and won $6 to finally get back into the black for stud.

A quick add-on for today.

I'd given Pacific a quick look awhile back but there didn't seem to be enough tables to choose from so I almost immediately gave up on the idea of playing there despite people telling me I should try it out. But today, after the trouble I had finding good tables at Party despite their large number of tables available (even though it was a bad time of the day), I decided to give Pacific a bit deeper look and sat in on several orbits at different tables. I really liked what I saw there. Enough so that I almost immediately took $150 out of Neteller to deposit into Pacific. You have to love people betting every round into a king high flop with K2s and getting called immediately by K8o, both NOT in the blinds.

So for the moment I'm going to be giving Pacific my full attention with my holdem play to see how it shakes out.

Thanks for the kind words JJ!

What you quoted, yeah, I'd reread that after I first posted it and realized that it did come off sounding like my main goal was to not win any money *L*. But I typically don't like to edit my posts after I put them out, and I think that quote was true to my feelings about that session: I felt like I was destined to not win any money the longer that session went on and "finally" finished out in the red. Now I envy the day when I only lost 20 cents.

At the moment I'm trying to regather my poker wits and trying to remember what made me a winning player at this limit in the first place. It certainly wasn't by calling down bets on every street with a pair of aces, ten kicker. I'm going to start taking advantages of opportunities when they come to me rather than trying to make them up out of thin air. I'll just keep chanting to myself while at the tables: ABC poker, ABC poker, ABC poker...and hopefully it'll sink in sooner rather than later.

Well I jumped back on that horse that's been kicking me around lately. I played about a two hour session tonight. Until I get my head straight I'm only playing a single table at a time; no sense losing on two tables while I'm not playing all that great.

I got a bit of an upturn tonight though. Not a huge one, but I'll take what I can get. I ended up playing on three different tables during this two hour period and was able to bank a win at each one (of course one table I only played like 8 minutes on and only won 65 cents). I won back $12 of the money that I'd lost, so I'm still playing catch-up, but it gave me a ray of hope.

I made a couple of pretty good decisions tonight that saved me money. The big one was when I limped in in the SB with AJs after two limpers. Maybe I should've raised, but I didn't like my position and at this table I knew it was likely I'd get everyone to call my raise unless I made it a huge one and if I missed my CB would most likely not've worked. 4 people were in the flop, which was 5-T-5. Everyone checked. Turn was a jack. I bet $1 with my TPTK. It was called by the BB and it was raised by another limper. Yesterday or even this morning I probably would've made the call and not given anyone credit for a hand. This time I folded. The other two players went to the end so I was able to see that one player had JTo, two pair on the turn, and the other had a 5 for trips, so I was way behind everyone that hand. I think playing a single table helped me slow down and consider what I could be ahead of and what I was mostly likely behind.

Here are some of the players' VPIP at the tables I played at tonight, all playing at least 50 hands: 90.70, 88.24 and 85.71. These were my main targets and who I won most of my money from. Luckily I didn't have to worry about them going broke because everyone else was giving them their money. I don't think any of these three people won less than $15. Unfortunately the cards were very dry for me most of the session so I didn't get many hands to get into it with them, but when I did get involved with them I don't think I lost one time, so I was doing good at picking my spots the way I was hoping I'd do during my last post.

Actually I just noticed I only managed to get 91 hands in during that 2 hour session. I knew the table play was slow, but not that slow. It's no wonder I didn't get many hands to play. I have to get back to at least two tabling as soon as possible because that just isn't enough hands; either that or at least double the time of my sessions.

Well anyways, I just wanted to report a bit of good news if only to make me feel a little better.

I finally managed to get back into the black on Pacific today, athough it was a bumpy ride. I actually played late last night/early this morning and ran into one of the fellows I mentioned in my last post (he had the highest VP$IP of anyone I've seen so far...it even went up during the session late last night). I parked my ass just to the left of him. Not only does he have a VP$IP of 94+, but he also has a PFR% of 37, so I thought right to the left would help me trap him as much as possible. Unfortunately the cards weren't great, but I at least managed to take about $10 off of him. He's my angel right now. Most extremely LAG players bust out and leave; this guy will buy in every single time, and for the full amount.

I played again this afternoon and it was going well for awhile. I was up about $20. Then this play happened:

I had [7h] in MP3.

UTG limped, UTG+1 raised to 50 cents and there was a caller in front of me. I called because it was a very small raise and this table was very, very loose-passive so I wasn't worried much about a reraise or getting enough people into the pot to make my hand worthwhile. Sure enough, only the SB folded, everyone else called. 7 people see the flop.

Flop was [5h][9c]

It's checked twice and MP1 (who was an aggressive, but loose opponent) bets out $1.50 into a $3.62 pot. I've caught a pretty good flop. A flush draw, inside straight draw and inside straight flush draw as well as top pair (though weak kicker). I debated about pushing all-in at this point with my draws, but after some consideration I just called. My flush draw wasn't all that strong and it was only an inside straight draw. Plus I had quite a few people left to act afterwards, and any one of them could've flopped a straight or a higher flush draw with top pair. Perhaps that meant I should've folded, but you can't fold this hand right here for $1.50 can you? Maybe you could've, but I wasn't able to.

Everyone else folded. So it was just me and MP1 playing on the turn.

Turn was [5h][9c][3d]

Pot was $6.62 and MP1 bets out $3.75. Now it's an even harder decision. I have one card left to come and MP1 could have anything at this point: two pair, a higher flush draw, a straight or even a set. The fact that he bet out a little over half-pot, him being an aggressive player, should've tipped me off that he already had a good hand. I gritted my teeth and called, my reasoning that because he was such an aggressive player, I was getting very good implied odds to make the call. At this point an all-in was out of the question because against this guy I had almost no fold equity.

River is [5h][9c][3d][7s]

Uh-oh...I just caught top two pair on a very drawy board. Here is where any logic I might've had at the beginning of the hand waves bye-bye. The pot is over $14 and he bets $8.25. Now, if he did have a set I'm beat, if he already had a straight I'm beat. I only win again a smaller two pair or a hand like A9 or K9 or an overpair (any of which was a possibility with this guy) or a busted flush draw. I was lost at this point. My seemingly innocuous decision to take this flop has now gotten me into all sorts of trouble. The fact that I already bracing myself to lose when I clicked "call" should've told me that I wasn't playing this hand correctly. His laggy style worked well here because I had no clue what he had. He turns over [7d]. He flopped a straight.

So that hand alone drops down my winnings today by $14, but I came back after that hand a managed to win a few more bucks before quitting for the day.

I was already a little pissed that I had to buy a hand grabber to get Pacific to work with PT, and even more so that that hand grabber completely missed an entire table I was playing at. So now I can't just look at PT to see what I'm winning or losing; I have to look at the actual poker site. Plus PAHUD, as far as I know, doesn't work with Pacific so that's useless to me now.

Wow, another good 73 minute session. Came away +$72.79. I'm up $126.33 in my last two days.

I wish I could say that I played a great session and that's why I won, but frankly I was really lucky. First I was lucky to hit a set of threes to bust a KK for about $20.

One hand, though, I felt very lucky to win, and it made up more than half of the money I won today. And it's a hand I don't think I played very well. In fact I was extremely lucky I wasn't up against top-notched competition on this hand.

I had [Ks] in EP. I should've known to make a bigger raise because it was a loose table (it was my primary table so I was watching it closely). But instead I only raise 5x the BB, to $1.25. Get three callers, all in better position than me. Uhoh. Flop came [5c][2c]. Seemed like a safe flop, but with three people behind me who knows? I bet $3.25 into a $5.37 pot. First two players call. Yikes! Last player goes all-in with his last $7.09. Double yikes! At this point I felt it was important to me, even if I lost the hand to the all-in, to raise and isolate this player. The player directly after me had a little more money than I did and I really wanted him gone. Even though his smooth call of my opening bet scared me a bit (he seemed solid enough), I still wasn't sure he had enough to risk nearly his entire chip stack. The next player I wasn't too worried about. He had less than $10, was very loose and had called down pretty bad hands earlier. So I reraise all-in ($22.11) to give the guy next to me every opportunity to fold; not only does this guy call, but even reraises himself all-in (there was really no reason to do that since he had me covered, but I guess it was just easier to push the bar all the way to the right). The loose guy after him calls all-in as well. I felt at this point I had maybe 10% chance of winning this hand. My only hope was that I had the solid player beat, but I wouldn't have bet on that at this point. Turn and river was [Ad].

Solid player has [Qd], whew. The loose player had [Ts]. The original all-in guy was going for a flush draw with [7c]. So ultimately I actually went all-in with the best hand and it held up but I'm still doubting that I played this hand the way I should've. But I won't bitch about the result. I won about $39 on this hand.

Other than that I think I played pretty well though; didn't make too many mistakes. My only loss of note came when I had QQ in EP, raised to $1.25 (at my primary table; I guess I just didn't learn) and got 3 callers. Flop was TT7. I make a standard 2/3 size bet into the pot after BB checks to me. I get one caller and then BB check raises with the minimum raise. I folded and ended up losing $4.25 that hand, which is actually my only loss above $1.25. As I said, I was lucky today and only hope I can start playing much better when the luck runs out.

My primary/secondary ratio is holding up. I won $40.42 at the primary table and a total of $32.37 at both secondary tables, although until that big win with the KK my primary table was far behind my secondary tables. But I guess when I'm playing this short of sessions it'll really come down to which tables I happen to get luckiest on during that short period.

My VP$IP is up a bit more than it used to be at 22.30, but I think that reflects Pacific's looser, more passive tables and the fact I'm limping in in late position a little more than I normally do with suited connectors or Ax suited hands with lots of people in the pot. My PFR is also higher than usual at 5.58 (it used to hang around 3.75-4.25). I used to make a CB religiously after a PFR if I was the first to act or if it was checked to me, so it seemed that every time I made a PFR I wasn't just risking that money, but usually more than double that amount because of the automatic CB. As a result I wasn't raising too many hands PF. I've changed my ways a bit now, though, and a CB is no longer an automatic thing to me. I still make them more often than not, but I mix in a check here or there, especially if I get more callers preflop than I wanted. As a result it feels like I'm not risking quite as much as I used to with a PFR, so I'm doing it a bit more often. And it seems to be paying off nicely. Some of these tables are very loose if they can limp, but shut down when someone raises. I try to take advantage of that when I can.

Since I was having so much trouble getting Pacific to work with PT early on, I made a new DB when I was very near even money at Pacific to better keep track of how I was doing through PT rather than having to keep going back to Pacific to check (which is a pain because it won't automatically save your password, unless I'm missing that option somewhere). It's not exact but it's close enough. So right now I have an all blue session page, and it's a beautiful sight. It's going to be as depressing as hell when that first red pops up there and makes it all ugly again. *L*

I took the day off from playing yesterday. I was running on like 5 straight days of 5 or less hours of sleep a night and it finally caught up to me. Some people can get along fine sleeping like that; I'm certainly not one of them. I was extremely irritable at work, getting pissed at the dumbest things. So there was no way in the world I was about to put my bankroll at risk when I was in that frame of mind. I ended up falling asleep around 6:00 PM and sleeping for like 11 hours. *L* It's literally been years since I've had a sleep like that, and I felt like a whole different person this morning, so it was worth it.

The plan was to play a longer session today to make up for it, if everything was going well after the first hour or so. Win-wise it was going well, but towards the end of what is usually my normal session I found myself getting involved into too many pots and doing things I normally wouldn't do. I debated about continuing anyways, but decided instead to not take a chance. Maybe a little over an hour at a time is as long as I should be playing; maybe that's where my attention span and discipline start to fade. Maybe that's why I always seem to do pretty well in the beginning of MTTs and begin to self destruct before I reach the end of the second hour of play. I guess if I feel like it later I may do another hour session, but I didn't want to push it this afternoon by playing sub-par poker just so I could get in another hour or so worth of hands.

My PT session page is still "perfect". This was one of those times when my secondary table fared better than the primary one. I won $27.79 on the secondary table and $16.28 on the primary one for a day's total of $44.07. My wins for the month is at $170.40. My PTBB/100 is a ridiculous 88.06. Yet keep in mind that I have yet to even crack the 500 hand mark (I like the competition at Pacific, but the play is sloooooow there compared to other sites I've tried; I only got in 56 hands in 74 minutes at one of the tables). It's nice to win, but I'm certainly not deluded enough to think much of what I've won so far had much to do with me; I've just been on a hot streak with the cards in good situations and have been lucky enough to take advantage of it. I haven't been faced with a single bad beat so far either.

Not that I think I'm playing badly. With a few exceptions I think I've been playing just about as good of poker as I've ever been playing (although there was a lot of room for improvement there, and still much more room for improvement available to me). But as most of you know, it's easy to play well when you're winning. When I start losing the real test is going to begin.

There was an odd hand that started off my day. It was actually my first hand of the session. I was in the BB with [Jc]. 7 People limped, so wanting to thin the field a lot I made it $1.75 to go (perhaps I should've made it $2.00-$2.50, but hindsight and all that). There were three callers (uhoh), but then the SB, bless his heart, reopened betting when he went all-in with his last $4. Remembering that every single person out there limped in originally, I didn't screw around. I pushed all-in. If they wanted to gamble, I was willing to give them their chance. They all fold and I find I'm up against [5h]. When a jack flops I let out a sigh of relief and eventually take in a nice pot to get my day started. I may have actually cost myself some money by betting everyone out since I ended up flopping a set of jacks, but since 7 out of 8 times I wouldn't've flopped that jack, I was just as happy to get everyone out of there and win a medium sized pot. An ace came up on the flop as well so if I hadn't hit my set I would've been gone on the flop if I'd just tried to limp.

Then the same orbit I'm in CO with [Js]. 3 people limp and I was just getting ready to raise when I realized I might look like a maniac doing that a few hands after the JJ. AJo isn't a hand I'm crazy about raising anyways, especially when I have almost no reads on anyone. So I limp myself. 5 people see the flop, which is [Jd][7s]. SB bets half-pot with 63 cents. One caller and it's my turn. I raise to $1.60. Both call. Turn is . They both check and I make a 2/3 pot bet of $4. SB calls, the other folds. River . Bingo. SB checks. I bet exactly his remaining stack. He calls with [8c]. I didn't even need that last ace. I'm loving Pacific and I've just won about $20 before I ever see the blinds again.

I won two other decent hands (both over $10), one when I flopped a set (jacks again!) but didn't stack anyone with it (it was my biggest win of the day though) and another when I made a PFR with A9s in the CO after two limpers. Both limpers call and I flop the nut flush draw. First limper bets a very small amount ($1 into a $4 pot), other limper folds. I raise to $3, hoping to win it there. He calls. Turn gives me the nut flush draw plus an OESD. I bet $7 into a $10 pot after he checks completely expecting him to fold. I was very surprised when he called; if I thought there was a chance he would call that bet I probably would've pushed all-in at that point. River completes my flush. Here I thought I had him. I didn't think there was any way he could put me on a flush at this point (and I actually thought he might've had one as well). He checks, I push my remaining $11+ into a $24 pot (he had me covered). He folds.

Alright, this one'll hopefully be shorter since it's about a losing session. *L*

Obviously I did decide to play again tonight. I got into trouble from the beginning. I sat down, posted a blind OOP just to the right of the CO. Dealt [Qs]. Very nice start to my session! One limper and I up it to $1.75. It's folded back to the limper who calls. Flop was [3c][2d]. Limper checks. I bet $2.75 into a $3.87 pot. This was my mistake. I should've made it at least a pot bet because I was vulnerable to aces or kings coming up on the turn. He calls. Turn: Ugh. He checks. I figure I'm beat, and unfortunately I let my bet show it. I only make a $5 bet into a $9.37 pot. He mini-checkraises and I fold. I lose $9.50 on that hand.

Within the first 5 minutes after that hand I pick up [7d] in the SB. 5 people limp and see the flop. [Qs][7h]. Cool, I just flopped and under-full. I check them; if nobody had a queen I needed someone to catch up some. Everyone else checks. Turn is . I decide to act as if that 8 helped me and I bet $1 into $1.25 pot. I get two callers. River is . Great! Hopefully one of them just caught A8 or A7 or something. I overbet the pot: $6 into a $4.25 pot. I get mini-raised. Huh? I simply can't put him on AQ because I don't want him to be on an AQ. *L* Well guess what? After I get nearly all my money in the pot, I find out that despite my wishes, he actually has AQ. I've played against this guy before and he has around 65% VPIP. No way I was able to put him on an AQ. Of course he lost it all later on flopping a flush with J4s (that he paid to see the flop) and losing to a bigger flopped flush. That didn't help me one bit though. I maybe could've gotten away from the river without so big of a loss, but I doubt it; it's hard for me to fold a full house in that position. I think at any point if I'd pushed all-in he was calling and I would've lost it anyways. On the flip side if anything else other than that ace, eight or queen showed up on the river I have no doubt I would've doubled up on him, so I can't bitch too much just because 1 of the 7 cards that could beat me happened to show up.

The good news is that I came back after that to cut my losses (those two hands were the only hands I lost more than $1.25). I won back about $14 of the $32 I lost early on to finish the session down about $18, so it could've been a lot worse. The red is as ugly as I remembered though. I do feel like I accomplished something just getting my hands over 500 at that damn site.

See how all that money went into the pot when you were behind? Not a good thing, bet the flop. If he has a Q you want to get his stack (not let him draw out on you for free). If he doesnt, well you're not gonna get paid much anyways.

Another bad session.

After starting this week with winning at 8 straight tables, I've now lost at 7 of my last 9, and each of my last 5.

I got stacked today with set over set. Called a $2 raise with 55. Flop was A5x. We get it all in on the flop and he has, of course, AA. I lost $36.55 today to drop my winnings this month below $100, to $97.

I've really been starting to wonder if no limit is what I should be playing. If it's suited to my temperament. I feel okay about it when I'm winning of course, but when I start going through a losing streak I start to become much more timid, which is not a good thing in NL. I begin to think my whole stack is in jeopardy every time I enter a pot so I tighten down so hard I start squeaking; I start putting people on the nuts unless I have a huge hand so I'm very unwilling to risk taking on someone when I have a good, but not great, hand if a lot of money (relatively speaking of course) could be at stake. I think I raised PF once today, with an AK. My VP$IPs at both tables were lower than 14, and these were both very loose tables in general. I just couldn't get myself to get involved even when the odds probably told me I should. Of course when I finally did get involved I overplayed my hands and lost more than I should've.

So I'm thinking about trying out a month or two-long experiment at the limit tables before I end up pissing away everything I've won so far this month at NL. I have absolutely zero confidence in my NL cash playing right now. And for good reason: I'm allowing the losses to change the way I'm playing so I'm not playing well at all. I don't think at all that winning at limit will be "easier", but knowing my entire stack isn't at stake on any one hand will, I'm hoping, ease my mind a little bit and allow me to start playing the way I'm supposed to be playing. I may integrate NL back in after awhile when my confidence returns and try to learn how to deal with the big losses that is possible with NL. Right now I'm just not there.