If I were actually trying to lose money, I don't think I'd succeed as well as I have while trying to win. I'm past the "all you can do is laugh" stage. I'm at "staring into the sky while muttering 'what the fuck just happened'." Soon enough I'll be curled into a fetal position on the floor, and from there it's a short trip to shooting people with a high-powered rifle from the roof at Commerce. Thankfully California has a two-week waiting period so I've got some time to start winning again before people have to die.

Friday, lose about a grand in the 5/10 game, not really sure how. These things happen. Play the $360 NL bounty tournament after that. Doing well, have a good stack the whole way through. Somehow though I don't get any bounties (which are $25 apiece), but I'd rather have chips anyway. What if I bubble though and don't get any bounties, that would be quite disappointing, wouldn't it? Yes, it would. And it was.

Saturday. March 1. New month. Put the whole awful February behind me. Clean slate. A new day. Well here's how that all went wrong.

#1. New at the table, get 74o in the BB. Free look. Flop is 865. Checks to someone who bets $100. I CR it to $300, he pushes for about $900. I call. My hand holds up.

Wait wait wait WHAT? Yes, I won a nice pot early on. This happens with regularity. I've taken to thinking of it as a bad omen.

I hang onto a decent stack for a couple hours before this happens:

#2. 99 in EP, raise it to $60. Get called thrice. Flop is . I bet $200. Albert, this young Korean kid who I've played a bunch and was at a final table with in December (see old entry for my F-word penalty at this final table. He was the inspiration) checkraises to $600. He's got another $900 and change behind. OK, Albert's got either a set or a big draw. He may be the only one at the table who would play a big draw this way, but I know he would. Could be , could be any variation of a straight/flush draw. What it most certainly isn't is an overpair since he limped in before me. So in this situation my 99 is as good as AA. Still, got a decision here. I decide to call the $400 and see the turn before deciding what to do when he shoves.

Turn is another deuce, which means he either filled up or is still drawing. He shoves. He's throwing off some nervousness, which for me was the tiebreaker, so I make the call. He's got 33. Enjoy the $1600, Albert. He finally got me back for me telling him to STFU three months ago. But I don't mind how I played it.

#3. on the button. Rock UTG makes it $35 and it's called 2 ways before me. Flop is two diamonds and my open-ender, so OK. UTG bets out $110 into the $140 pot, and I've got him on something that isn't a flush draw. I take one off. Turn is the , completing the flush. He checks, so it's now my time to rep that obvious flush. I bet $200, and he calls. I've got him now dead to rights on the , likely with the king. River is some brick so I've now got 10-high and he likely has top pair with a busted flush. And he's a rock, which I think I've mentioned. He checks, I bet $400. He calls with his . I think he folds AK there. Shoulda folded AA there. Of course none of that would matter if I could hit a fucking draw once in my life.

#4. Albert again. I've got in the blinds. Limped eleventy-billion ways, flop is . I bet out $40 and Albert calls, we're now heads up. Turn is a brick, I check and he bets $100, I call. He's tricksy-like which means he's got a flush or nothing. on the river. Would anyone here be surprised if Albert had the ? I sure wasn't. Only cost me $150 more to see it though.

#5. KK in the BB. There's a straddler, and it folds to the button who makes it $85. I can see that the straddler is folding so I flat call. I've only got $1000 left at this point. Flop is JTx, I check it for him and he bets $175. Strong bet there. Smells like AJ to me. I pop it to $500, and he shoves. Sinking feeling enters pit of my stomach. I call, he turns over JTo. It holds up. WELL PLAYED SIR. It must be nice to make a garbage raise with a garbage hand and hit a jackpot. Maybe I'll try it sometime.

And yes I know I could have repopped it preflop and won right there, but winning $100 somehow sounded worse than losing $1000. Go me.

I've now lost 25% of my bankroll this year. I'm going to Vegas on Friday. That will either help or it really, really won't.

Since I put some money online I decided to buy a $215 lottery ticket in the Sunday Million. Lasted longer than 5500 or so players. Not good enough obviously. Irony of ironies is that I busted out of this one virtually the same way as that KK hand- in this case I flat called a button raise in the SB with AA and got beat by the BB's 77. But in a tourney with such a shitty structure as the Sunday Million, I was not at all comfortable with an average size stack at that stage and didn't mind playing a big pot. Perhaps I should have mentally rechecked recent history and I would have realized that heeding my first thought is always the wrong idea.

Wow, that's like an epiphany right there. I'm back!

Vegas day two.

Didn't get to any pokering until afternoon at Venetian. 5/10 NL as always. I. Cannot. Win. Giant donkey at my table, so naturally he outboats me on the river and I lose $700 or so. Flop KQ8, turn K, river Ace. I have 88. You know how that ends.

One giant missed opportunity that will haunt me. Straddle pot, 6 people in, I've got 65o in the SB. Flop is A74 with two hearts, tightest player there bets pot size. It's back to me, I decide I have 15 outs since there's my straight and there's the flush that he won't have and I can represent if it hits. I call. Turn is a brick, I check, he bets nearly pot, I call. There is zero chance he thinks I have anything but a draw. The plan is going swimmingly. River is an offsuit 3, giving me the nuts. And what does genius do, who concocted this brilliant plan? Checks, so the tight guy can check behind. Why the fuck did I do that? I was supposed to bet out and rep a busted flush draw and get PAID. Total brainfart that cost me $400 or so.

Last major hand at the table is one of those that just represents everything that "running bad" means. Guy raises, I call on the button with KTs. Flop is 644. He bets out because he always does. I know he likely has overs. I raise him to try and take it down. He calls. I know he's weak. Turn is the third 4, it goes check/check. I want him to think I have a decent sized pair or maybe a 4. River is a jack, he checks and since I have shit, I bet $400 which is nearly pot size and half his stack. He thinks for a long while before guy next to me tells him to hurry up. He hurries up and calls with AQ. Good god. I couldn't even make the guy fold that? WTF did he put me on, AT?

Left that table after 9 hours stuck considerably. Went to Palazzo to play blackjack and killed it for $1100. I need to stick to games that I know how to play.

A few hands/oddities from 5/10 NL at the Bike:

I get AA twice, KK and QQ all in the same orbit. They go like this:

- first AA, win the blinds
- next is QQ, fold preflop to heavy action. Would have lost to KK.
- next is KK, lose to A5s. Running aces are hot.
- AA again, win decent pot but not without a lot of sweat.

A little while later I get QQ again, and it runs into KK again. Couldn't get away from it that time, cost me about $500. Shortly after that I get JJ vs QQ.

Smartest decision I've made in a while. 54s in the BB, free look. Flop is 763 with two hearts. I bet out $30, donk to my left calls, another guy raises to $95. I'm not going to fuck around here so I reraise it to $300. Donk shoves for about $1200. Other guy folds. I ask the donk if he has a straight or a draw, he turns over his 63o (yep, as I said...donk). Now I've been running horribly lately and this guy has already pulled several spectacular suckouts out of his ass. Ordinarily I'd happily let him chase 4 outs for his stack but not here. I offer to run it twice, he accepts. He hits the first one, I hold up on the second. If we hadn't run it twice he'd be $1200 richer at my expense.

While later I double him up anyway but it was a much smaller amount. Couldn't have been avoided.

A controversial one here. in the blinds, someone raised it to $40 or something and I call after 3 others do. $200 or so in the pot, and the flop has two diamonds but otherwise misses. It checks around. Turn is another diamond. Donk (same donk, now on my right) opens for $40. OK, I'll take the cheap card. I flat call. Regular player (and a good one) raises to $175. Donk folds. So it's $455 in the pot and $135 for me to call...not quite what I need to chase a flush but not totally far off either. Of course if I hit my flush it's unlikely I get paid off with 4 diamonds out there. There's no guarantee that the other guy has a flush already either. It could be that the bet was so weak that he could make a weak raise in position to steal it. But that just means I'd have to bet out on the river if I miss and hope he doesn't have a calling hand, and the guy's a solid reader. Anyway, apparently I play bad so I make the call. I hit the 4th diamond on the river, bet out $300 (half the pot), he calls and after seeing my hand mutters something about how bad I play. I contend that it was marginal without being really bad. Maybe even "marginal at best."

Another one that looks uglier than it is. We're 6-handed, I limp after a limper with . Flop is . It checks to the button who bets out some weak shit like $35 into the $60 pot. Donk before me calls, I decide to take one off for shits and giggles with my gutter/backdoor flush draw. Even announce "one time" before I call. Turn is , quite a solid card. I bet out this time, $100. Button calls. River is . Nuts! I bet out $200 and he calls. Before turning my hand over I tell him it ain't pretty. He had flopped top two pair.

Couple things he should have done differently. It's a draw heavy board with several people in the pot, one of whom is a known donk who will call with damn near anything (which gives everyone else their odds). Bet more on the flop. I call $35 but fold $50. Probably even fold $40. But a weak button bet on a coordinated board? I'll take one off and see what happens.

Argument can be made for raising my bet on the turn too since it did look like a blocking bet, but I did also hit a perfect card to freeze him. It's a tough spot.

So my session in a nutshell- get good cards and lose, overplay marginal hands and win. Perhaps I'm turning into a donkey. Was stuck as much as $1300 in the session but ended up even. I'll take it.

I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON!

Well I won about $1600 at the Bike, and just having a good winning session makes me put away the noose I fashioned out of my shoelaces for a while. Some highlights:

There's a big braying donkey in the house. The kind that raises every pot, bluffs liberally, and you can't put on a hand. Good times. We're all waiting for our shot at him, but naturally he's hitting all kinds of wacky shit. I'm two to his right and get AA when he straddles. I limp. He very predictably makes it $200, so I make it $600. He calls. Not sure if he's looked at his cards yet. We're both playing over $4000. Flop is and he insta-pushes in front of me. Wasn't expecting that. Now one thing I've picked up on him is that he slowplays big hands (which is so, so stupid when you're a maniac). If he had a straight, set, or even two pair he likely checks to me. He's either got a complete bluff or a huge draw/pair-draw. I have never seen him make this particular move before. So I know that chances are my AA is ahead but I'd be flipping a coin for my whole stack, so I fold. He turns over . Someone rabbit-hunts it and the AA would have held up, but who knows what it would have been on the second and third deal (which we undoubtedly would have done). Oh well.

I did tag him fairly good before that, by accident. He raises and I call with 88. We're heads up and he bets $175 blind on the flop, which is AQx. I call. Turn is another A, this time he bets $200 having looked at his hand. I'm in calling station mode since the chances of him having a real hand are slim. I call. River is an 8. Yay! He bets out $600 now. For some reason I don't raise and just call him and win, he had JJ. Was thinking about it quite a bit after- he certainly could have had a big hand (most of which have me beat), and his usual slowplay-with-monsters thing didn't really apply here since he bet blind on the flop and followed up with a weak turn, before pounding the river. But it's another of those classic hands where a raise may only get called by a better hand, and since he only had JJ he wasn't calling a raise anyway. I had him on either a big hand or total air, not something in between.

There were other big hands (against other people even) but I don't remember the details. Donkey started flailing after a while giving away big pots to others, and nearly got 86'd for swearing at the dealer. Was down to about $1000 and change when I left. I left for the flimsiest of reasons- I had ordered some fried zucchini but the waiter forgot, and I was starving and thinking about leaving anyway so I cancelled the order and went to Taco Bell instead. I've finally got back to enjoying live poker again. Let's see how long that lasts.

Winning Is Fun.

But first, some Losing Is Not Fun:

In the $335 tourney at the Bike. It's like hand #4 or something. I get 99 on the button and there are two limpers (at 25/25), I make it 150. Both call. Flop is , it checks around. Turn is . First guy bets 200, next guy calls, I make it 700. First guy shoves for nearly 2000 (starting stack size). Next guy calls. I call. I'm up against AJ (first guy, whataplayer) and . We already know how this one's going to end- me with about 200 chips from winning the sidepot and out the door a few hands later. NIHAN. Well played, sir.

And winning:

5/10 NL. Cruising along, won a big pot with AA somehow, a couple others. This one was a beauty:

in the BB. It's a straddle pot, and the straddler is a decent enough player who has been eating everyone else's shit all night. He's perpetually shortstacked, here with about $300 or so. He knows how to execute the straddle/shove shortstack move (step 1: straddle with a shortstack. step 2: shove after everyone limps). So several people limp, I limp hoping he'll shove and knock out the chaff. He checks behind. There's the flaw in my plan right there.

Anyway the flop is favorable, . I bet out $80 into the $120 pot. Guy at other end, who I don't really know, makes it $280. Hmmm...just a jack or a set? Kinda makes a big difference. I make him count down his stack (fun!), he's got about $1700 or so and I have him covered. I call. Turn is , so add a few more outs for me. If he pounds it though I will likely have to fold. I check and he bets $300 into the $700 pot. Oops! Thanks for the cheapie. I call. Turn is the most beautiful card I could see, the . He's got about $1300 or so left, I bet out $800. Really want him to think I missed a flush so I splash the chips good. He ponders and eventually calls. Never saw what he had.

That hand took me from even for the day to up a bunch. A couple hands after that I get JJ, raise, get a few callers (standard), and see a flop of KJx. I bet out and the poor unfortunate soul who has been running badly pushes for $250 or so (my bet was $150). I call, and ask him if he's drawing. He says no and says I won't believe what he has, which is AA. I believe it when I see it. Sucks for him. He does ask if I'll give him a second shot at it and even though I shouldn't, I don't want any more bad karma than I already carry so I agree to run it twice. He misses both, I take stack. But sometimes it's good to do the honorable thing, since I would have felt like an ass if I hadn't.

Nothing he could have done there, if he pushes preflop I still take his stack. He was having the kind of night that I lived in for a month or so this year. Earlier he flopped a set and someone else had flopped a nut straight. Then he did the exact same thing not long after. Obviously the board doesn't pair either time. No fun.

I went home with some more money to pay off my debt. I expect a soul-crushing defeat today.