So today's story...

...after getting into the $1500 NL as an alternate and waiting two hours to be seated, I get crippled early when I run 44 into AA in a huge pot. After coming back to an 8x stack, I lose AKs to AQo AIPF.

-I lose most of my stack in the UB $129 bounty tournament with KK to JJ.

-I spend $1400 in the Stars $109r, because I get all in with AK vs 88, AQ vs 99, and 88 vs 99 all in the first hour, and then lose AK to JJ in the 2nd hour.

-I run AT into AJ in the blinds in the FTP $163. Then after I come back I lose AQ to JJ.

It's at the point where I completely expect that I will lose any time I am all in and the cards are turned over. I no longer look forward to races because I've won something like one of them in the last month. Yeah, one. I'm not kidding.

Maybe I'll write about some interesting hands later, but this is just weighing too heavily on me right now. I don't even want to think about poker.

Tuesday and Wednesday I played online and made the money of four events while making no final tables (that's three final two tables and a final three tables if you're scoring at home). Yesterday was the $5000 6-max event, which is what I've been fired up more for than anything else, so obviously I busted in the third level. Today I got out of bed to play the $2000 no limit event and spent almost ten hours there before busting, a time mostly marked by "chipping up or winning big pots flopping huge with random hands" combined with "getting big pairs cracked and losing pretty much every all-in where I wasn't a sizable favorite".

Some interesting hands will be posted later.

If I could run decently well late I might close out a tournament one of these days.

Sick three-bet bluff on Cake Poker

I showed, of course.

Ugh, I feel like I never have time to write these out in full. Anyway, a quick summary before I leave:

Wednesday was day 2 of the heads up event and I lost my first match to Toto Leonidas after playing for a solid 2 1/2 hours. I didn't get the breaks I needed; I feel like I did a great job running up from a short stack, pushing often and piling up chips with sheer aggression. Unfortunately, he found a couple of hands at the right time, I couldn't win a showdown, and with 20BB in play, there's just no other way to finish off the match.

Then Thursday I bubbled the final table of the Bellagio Cup's $2500 event. 10th place, no money.

Obviously frustrating times. I'm playing well; I'm sure of that. And this is just another example of the sick variance involved in playing live tournaments. And you can't let it affect your game... if you want to be a winning tournament player, if you want to reach the heights of your profession, you have to be stronger than that, you can't let bad runs affect your play. In short, you have to get over them.

Anyway, I'm going to play the $1500 today. I'll have a more complete report of everything in the next day or two, I hope.

I made the round of 64 in the WSOP $5000 heads-up match. They started with something like 390 players so many of us (including me) got first-round byes. I beat Luke (2+2er IWEARGOGGLES) in the second round and Josh Arieh in round three. I didn't play particularly well against Luke but got lucky in all of the big pots; against Arieh, I played more passively than I wanted to early, because I was fairly card dead, so I didn't much get to showdown with him-- making it hard to get a line on his play. I also ran some big hands into bigger ones in huge pots, but somehow managed to basically lose the minimum.

I busted him when I called his flop check-raise with a double-gutshot and he checked and moved in on the turn after I bet. He had a flush draw and an overcard and the river bricked.

I was fortunate today; I need to play better tomorrow. In particular I need to be less passive, pick up more small pots, and use position more.

We're in the money, BTW. Making the round of 64 pays $9,212 and it goes up from there. I'll report again tomorrow.