State of the nation

When I began this blog only a little over two months ago (it seems longer), things were wonderful in the kingdom of poker; I was winning session after session and growing a realy nice bankroll for my level of play.

Since then, things have gone downhill quite badly. My personal finances have required me to draw upon my bankroll, and a few disastreous sessions have decimated what was left. This has had the knock-on effect of causing me to play a tiny, scared-money bankroll with an inevitable loss of freedom and strength in my play.

So what am I taking from this terrible run that is positive, life-affirming and helps me?

Nothing.

It just fucking sucks.

As I write I have just been fucked up the arse by a crappy river at pot limit Omaha. It always seems to be the way that when you are short-stacked and struggling then the bad beats start flowing. Ten minutes ago I got beat in a heads-up match in which I was pummelling my opponent. It reached the point that he just started calling me with any hand whatsoever when I was trying to finish him off, and proceeded to horribly out-draw me in three consecutive hands to win the match.

So there you go. Profits have plummeted from over a thousand dollars to about half that. Winning sessions have become less frequent. My confidence in my game has taken a nosedive.

An awful lot of this comes down to my now pathetic bankroll, which really inhibits me.

Anyway, lets move along. Its been a mixed weekend. Friday night was cool. Another night where I was pleasantly drunk and played strangely well on it. I won $20 at pot limit Omaha, and took a satisfying second in another Omaha sit and go after being ridiculously short-stacked.

Saturday was uncool. It began with a really, really, really annoying session of pot limit five card stud. People made a couple of calls on the end that I will never understand (but winning calls none the less), and I got stiffed bad when a woman made a straight against my (A)TA hand.

After that a headsup match went against me, while pot limit Omaha started well and then got frustrating as I folded preflop to heavy action with borderline hands like QQxx, and such hands turned into the nuts while the ones I did play couldn't hit a flop. At the same time, I won another Omaha sit and go. That gave me an extraordinary record of six consecutive finishes in the top two: 1,2,2,1,2,1.

The night was a loss of $30, exactly negating Friday's win.

(Just flopped quad 9's at PLO, checked flop and turn, five opponents, could not get a bet, call or raise out of a single one of them)

(Just went out 4th in a sit and go. Three short stacks. I was the only one trying to make moves and get somewhere. I got incredibly cruelly beaten in the end, the same guy beat me with a two outer and then an eight outer when we clashed and I had him in all sorts of trouble).

My run of sit and go cashes has ended today, with a 7th and an extremely unlucky bubble.

Wow, I have turned into a bad beat bore. Tonight has also sucked, as the bracketed stories have illustrated. I am now about to put my bankroll into a pot limit Omaha game and go crazy-mental with it. I always did like the final scene of 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'.

Postscript: 2nd in a sit and go. With three left one was not playing any more. I had a monster chip lead, something like 12,000 to 3.00 divided between the other two. I let the active guy take second before I started playing him, which came back to bit me in the arse when he mounted an absolutely unbelievable comeback headsup. He won every single hand. I am an idiot. I could have eliminated him and been headsup with an absent player! Feedback please: Am I am complete idiot who lacks killer instinct, or a decent guy who did the 'right thing'?