I withdrew 4k from FTP and still have 1k on there as well as 2 $75 tourney tokens. I reviewed some HHs and in my last session I played quite poorly and passed up like 5 +ev situations. I guess I was playing too passively/trying to cash, which is a poor strategy obviously.

Haven't played since last Wed other then the silver freeroll for FTP, ship $60 lol. I doubled up one hand and made the money to lose to CL as a 3-1 fav, w00tever. Rakebucks hasn't responded to whether or not I can get RB on absolute but I'm not sure I should play on there. There has been a lot of shit about AP lately b/c there's a superaccount capable of seeing all holecards and AP is doing nothing about it.

I got some scripts for stars and am going to start multitabling on it tonight. I'll probably do 16s or 6s to get used to the structure again and might 6-9 table to get used to scripts and stuff. I took a much needed break to examine my game and realized I'm not being careful enough to spot +ev spots. Also I've been making some weird plays that cost me money I think. I'm in the process of having some other 2+2 people examine some hand histories. It should be pretty cool to see comments from entire HHs from 5 other good players.

The last 2 sessions have been absolutely horrible. I am just running sooo bad over like 1500 games, which is totally ridiculous. It seems improbable that I could run that badly over a large sample. I must be playing not great but I don't see where my leaks are. When I posted the videos on 2+2 everyone said well played, no major leaks, etc. I've become way tighter from EP and more aggro bvb and from CO/btn and yet I crushed in August and am doing badly now. I can't even have a positive roi at any level recently.

I need to find a new site b/c it seems like every good/ok/not bad player knows my ranges from every position. It's so annoying. I think it's a good reason why I was crushed FTP in August and am doing absolutely horrible since then. Also FTP 22s and 11s seem a lot harder now then in the summer.

I might become another one of those sng to cash players after running bad. At the very least, I need to take a long break from FTP: vers (every1 on 2+2 knows my ranges too I think). I think I'll play cash, MTTs for a bit or play somewhere else, even though no other site has RB and runs sngs often. I've pretty much have no other place to go to for sngs w/ RB for high volume play other then FTP. Anyways, it'll be  while till I'm on ftp again, I think I'm going to cash out the roll tonight and find something else more constructive to do for a while. Maybe get way ahead on readings/essays.

Basically the only good thing that happened today was that I got a midterm back and got 80%. Well it's good, I thought I deserved like 85% but it seems pretty pretty to complain about an 80.

Also I had a dream last night where I won a PLO tourney for like $15000. I wonder if that's a sign that I should play a $75 PLO tourney.

I just checked my tourney manager, 72 sngs without a first! A new record. Wow I run badly.

Didn't play much at all on the weekend as I was helping my dad move to collingwood and also on a 19" monitor that I could only 4 table on w/o overlap. I probably won like $60 over 15 sngs or so. Played 42 $22 sngs tonight and won $60. Not big numbers obviously but decent wins. Not too many interesting hands. I had some regulars play weirdly against me knowing that in early levels I am opening pretty tight and probably can't get away from it (playing for full stacks).

Ex. I raise utg to 90 w/ KK. Swimfishyswim (played him a lot a few months back but not lately) raises to 630 (with 700 behind). Obviously this is a pretty fucked up play I think he was trying to give me the message that he had TT/JJ/AK and was pot committing himself to show that he wouldn't fold to a shove. Honestly, I don't know how else to rationalize his play. He was just trying to make it look like a semi-steal so I stack off with the bottom part of my early level opening range. Anyways, I shove, he shows AA and I suck out a K on the riv. People are really starting to put weird plays on me like this and hard-reading is getting even trickier.

I tried to put a sick play on Dubins today but it didn't work. 20/40, Dubins (2nd on ldrboard/decent player) raises to 140. About 2-3 flat callers, can't remember. I have AA in BB. I shove for 1500, he mucks and so does everyone else. Obviously I can try to raise to 500 but I think at that point Dubins folds hands like AQs/99/TT/JJ thinking that I am trying to extract value out of KK/AA. I like the shove because with like 600 dead in the middle it looks a lot like a steal. He folded, so I don't really know what he had/why he didn't call the shove. I still think it was a pretty creative/good play that looks fucked and gets called by a lot of weaker hands in his range. I don't know his opening range exactly, but I would think for a winning multitabler, it might be 77+, AJs+, AQo+. I guess he probably mucks 77/88/99 there and AJs, AQo. The rest I can see him calling with.

Anyways the point is people are playing back at me more, making lighter calls vs me (especially on the bubble) and I am getting a lot of spite calls from regulars (bigbustedblonde for example). Not really sure what I am going to do (don't want to discuss anything illegal here lolz). It's been a pretty slow months, haven't played that many sngs. 235 sngs played, stuck 400 (rake pretty much). Basically I'm stuck from running shitty at 33s earlier in the month. Since then I've had 4 straight winning days but at 11s/22s for little profit.

Exchanged some HHs w/ another 2+2er so that should help too.

Played 51 sngs tonight. Had some software problems with FTP (didn't let me load more than 11 I think b/c I am registered in 2 promotional freerolls). Despite 8 consecutive OOTM and an ongoing 25 sngs w/o a 1st, I had like a $20 loss. Better than running absolutely horrid. The session was going well for a while, but then I just lost every hand HU and had under 10% 1sts and 35% ITM (should be at least 5% higher for 11s). Anyways, not too many interesting hands. Didn't feel like I misplayed anything...

I am thinking about a new daily feature called beat of the day. This is only if I remember to  get the HH.

Full Tilt Poker Game #3760001057: $11 + $1 Sit & Go (Turbo) (28649589), Table 1 - 200/400 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:59:57 ET - 2007/10/04
Seat 2: jessikalvs69 (2,790)
Seat 3: vers (2,240)
Seat 5: eddiefarkel (3,800)
Seat 7: DayJay2k (2,130)
Seat 8: embezzle you (2,540)
embezzle you posts the small blind of 200
jessikalvs69 posts the big blind of 400
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to vers [6c 6d]
vers raises to 2,240, and is all in
eddiefarkel folds
DayJay2k calls 2,130, and is all in
embezzle you folds
jessikalvs69 folds
vers shows [6c 6d]
DayJay2k shows [As Td]
Uncalled bet of 110 returned to vers
*** FLOP *** [Kh Kd 6s]
*** TURN *** [Kh Kd 6s] [Th]
*** RIVER *** [Kh Kd 6s Th] [Tc]

I forgot to add this earlier today, but I lost to quads twice. The worst was ALL IN PRE HU.

k7hh vs AJo.

6hJhQh ...  runs J J for quads.

I 12 tabled the 11s on FTP tonight and won $49. Ship the profit to end the 4 day in a row losing streak. I had a good amount of 1sts but low ITM %. I had one interesting hand but lost the HH, I think I remember the hand though.

40/80, I'm in BB w/ 86o. CO limps, everyone else folds.

875 flop, I check, he bets 120, I flat. Turn 2, I check, he bets 200, I call. River T, I check, he bets 400, I snap call, he shows KJo. I really didn't think he could possibly have a hand there (or hit the river). I didn't want to CR the flop and bloat it relatively early in the sng too. I think I play it pretty well and my read was dead on, so I was pretty happy about that hand. I also made a few others hero calls I am proud of.

I made a couple marginal shoves but I am noticing like 100% of very close shoves right now, which is pretty good. I'm trying a lot harder to make realistic hand ranges and not always shoving like A rag from EP w/ under 10x and stuff like that. I think I played pretty well today.

I got Fulltiltshortcuts today which is so awesome. It's $25. It automatically opens new sngs and closes them when you bust out/win. No more clicking to register and minimizing windows (other then the lobby). Also it automatically requests time when you time out which will save a lot of mucked hands. I misclicked once today and accidentally folded KK utg (It looked like KJ to me for some reason). I just acted to quickly and I guess I was a bit tired. I also misread T8 for TT from the SB vs the BB. I shoved but it was a shove anyways, despite it being t8o.

Other than that, I felt pretty good playing today despite having a kinda shitty day at uni.

More of the same, ran shitty, blah blah. Still downswinging. Might move to ongame tommorow. Might play some cash instead for a bit.

Made a video of me 4 tabling some 11s. The only thing keeping me sane right now is knowing that I'm playing reasonably well.

This month starting off with the following hand (first all in this month):

Full Tilt Poker Game #3730529360: $22 + $2 Sit & Go (Turbo) (28431945), Table 1 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:06:25 ET - 2007/10/01
Seat 1: stevemo12 (1,485)
Seat 2: sfeedking (1,350)
Seat 4: blanghauser (2,695)
Seat 5: Rood621 (1,455)
Seat 6: Vault832 (1,470)
Seat 7: Muckomat86 (1,500)
Seat 8: vers (1,500)
Seat 9: H2OGHOST (2,045)
Vault832 posts the small blind of 20
Muckomat86 posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to vers [Ad Ac]
vers raises to 120
H2OGHOST folds
stevemo12 folds
sfeedking folds
blanghauser folds
Rood621 folds
Vault832 raises to 400
Muckomat86 folds
sfeedking: wow mmmk
vers raises to 1,500, and is all in
Vault832 calls 1,070, and is all in
vers shows [Ad Ac]
Vault832 shows [Qd Qs]
Uncalled bet of 30 returned to vers
*** FLOP *** [5d 6s 2d]
*** TURN *** [5d 6s 2d] [7d]
*** RIVER *** [5d 6s 2d 7d] [Qc]
vers shows a pair of Aces
Vault832 shows three of a kind, Queens
Vault832 wins the pot (2,980) with three of a kind, Queens

So after this fantastic start to the month, I run at - some ROI, whatever it was bad. 50 sngs played, down $180. 30% ITM, 14% 1st (which is what it should be).

Posted a couple of hands on 2+2 (one bad shove on the bubble). I looked at some of the HHs and sngpt's tutorial for HU and I really misplayed some hands. I shoved entirely to wide in a sb vs bb situation against who I thought was a tight player. I also tried a squeeze play on the bubble as a huge stack w/ someone already all in, anyways I ran into KK. It was a pretty bad shove anyways as I forgot that the KK only could get 4th if he lost to both me and utg all in. I was in auto-shove mode a couple times and made some -ev shoves. Shoved t4o I think at one point HU that I should've mucked. I just wasn't playing particularly well. Probably b/c I had a few days off, kinda tired, not focused, whatever. Well I learned more, going to be more observant obviously. The good thing about making bad moves is you think about them, post on 2+2, get flamed, and then never do the same play again lol.

Talked to a regular from the 33s/55s a lot on msn today (goldseraph) and learned about who to avoid, etc. Really helped.

Looked at some other sites deposit bonuses from the ongame network but they don't seem to run very often. I might end up playing there during the day. Bought a nice bottle of wine and am looking to drink away my downswing (jk), I know drinking wine has nothing to do with how bad I have run.

820 sngs played, -7.6 ROI, down $2033 before RB. RB = $600. Down 1,534.00 on the month. ITM % 35.1. % of 1sts 11.

I didn't get around to playing today and only got the silver freeroll I think. I didn't leave myself enough time to study for my midterm. It went very well though. I gave up some equity by not playing all weekend (and not qualifying for the gold freeroll which has I think 5k more of a prize pool). The advantage is that the field is probably softer because I'll be up against more recreational players.

I have nothing to do this week basically, so a lot of poker will surely happen.

Here's the links for both my videos I made in the last week.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NQC95VI7 (corresponding 2+2 thread: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12266180&page=2&fpart=1&vc=1&nt=2 )

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0Z56KDPR (corresponding 2+2 thread: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12271217&an=0&page=6#Post12271217 )

There's a new sng book out: http://www.amazon.ca/Month-Playing-Online-Poker-Step/dp/1550227882/ref=sr_1_1/701-6690549-0222733?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191273588&sr=8-1
The little description doesn't say a whole lot. Saying that there's a possibility of 30k per month is a pretty strong claim. There must be a lot of expert play, high limit sng instruction I would think if the book says you can make 30k a month. I might buy it since it's like $20. Anything that I can potentially use obviously offsets such a small cost.

Here are the goals for this month that I posted on 2+2.

1) Have a winning month
2) stop having downswings, zomg
3) 1000+ sngs at 22s/33s and 55s/
4) Post more hands
5) Make more videos
6) Make regular updates on my blog
7) Get my uni stuff sorted out ;-)

I'm committed to all of those, especially the 1000 sngs this month. I was kinda lazy last month, took a lot of days off and didn't feel much like playing during my downswing. Hopefully this month goes better. I have learned a lot of stuff from reading 2+2, thinking about the game and that should help significantly, especially for short stacked play and HU. D-Jarl (swedish pro) said my HU game was pretty much the best among 24s and 36s.

I went back to Toronto for a day and got back to Kingston late on Saturday Night. I was too tired to play, so I obviously opted to just lounge around, drink beer and watch some tv shows (weeds, it's always sunny in Philadelphia and The IT Crowd). I have my first midterm on Monday and haven't really done a whole lot for it yet. I'm 1 day away from qualifying for the Gold Freeroll on FTP which I think has a 15k prize pool or something pretty decent. So I have to earn 200 pts today at 7 points per $1 paid in rake. I can pretty much get that in an hour or so. Seems like if all things stay roughly the same, I'll end the month down 1.5k over 900 sngs. Pretty nasty but I learned a lot this month.

Hey, played 47 sngs b/c I had some support problems with FTP. I would've played more but FTP kept saying I couldn't open up more tables. I couldn't have 12 going at the same time b/c I had too many windows open apparently, which is BS. Half the time I could only have 8 going which sucked. Anyways, the session started off great, a few firsts, lots of ITMs. I had 12 going and was only down like $50 (with 400 in equity or whatever in the tables). The session turned extremely sour as I went OOTM for 11 straight. I finished the session down $290. Also I set a new record for most sngs without a win at 41, which obviously played a large role in giving me a shitty loss.

I started to think more about my leaks, especially HU leaks and looked at the sngpt tutorial. I then made a 2nd sng video 4 tabling 22s and 33s. This one is smaller in length and in size, so I think I might post that too. There are a couple more marginal hands. I have a lot of fun doing these so I think I'll probably make more. I cashed 1/4 and that was for a 1st in the 22, so I ended up losing $20, and with RB I guess only $15. So nothing too bad, just disappointed with 1 ITM as the tables were pretty soft.

I probably won't play again till Monday. Hopefully the break will do me some luck. I finished the month with playing about 800 sngs, stuck $2000, paid $2200 in rake. So with RB, I'm stuck like 1.5k on the month. Pretty sour, but it has given me reason to think about my game more often, post on 2+2, make videos, so this downswing is kinda positive in a sense. W00tever, there is always next month.

Oi, I played 31 sngs today and did pretty decently. I only played 27 in my first session b/c when I started busting in some, I tried to load new ones, but there were far too many pros online. I try not to play with more than 1 regulars in each sng as it cuts down on ROI and is generally just not worth it. I cut the session short and ended a $180 winner, 22.5 ROI with a ITM% of 37. 37 is also low, 3% below my average, but it was a winning session b/c I over performed and got 18% 1sts (5% higher than usual).

Afterwards, I did a video of myself 4 tabling (2 11s and 2 22s) which I plan on posting on 2+2 to have people watch and comment. There are quite a few close shoves preflop and a few interesting hands other than that. I also came back from about 800 chips HU to win wish highlights the fact that I don't run bad all the time. I ended up a $130 winner over 4 sngs which is awesome. I used sngpt a lot during the video which was nice. When 12 tabling I never have that luxury. Almost all the close pushes/folds ended up being close pushes/folds which is reassuring. Look for it on 2+2. The file is pretty large though and the sound is kinda weird, so I will have to edit it somehow.

I played 51 sngs today. I should've played more but I took some gross bubbles and didn't want to continue playing/loading tables after about 2.5hrs in. Examples of this are like when I'm 1st in chips on bubble and I shove and 2nd in chips who I barely just cover wakes up with either AA or KK, the only two hands that can profitably call me (when a short stack is present with like 2 big blinds). So obviously I pick up a super standard shoving hand like 88 and run into KK to get crippled down to 100 chips and then bubble the next hand. A lot of stuff happened like that today. Also notable was a hand that was like this (I don't have the Hand History).

150/300 blinds, 6 handed.

Utg raises to 1000 (has 1000 left and has a voluntary put in pot (vpip) of 15 and preflop raise % (pfr) over 10 over 20 hands). Laggy (loose aggressive) 32/20 shoves for 3200. I have QQ on the button. I call figuring utg has a weak hand b/c a monster w/ his stack probably only min raises. UTG mucks getting like 7-1 on the call. LAG has AK. Board comes out AAxKx and I lose a 8000 chip pot, gg.

I ended up losing $180 (paid like $110 in rake) so it ends up being like a $150 lose with rakeback. Still very shitty. I underperformed in in the money percentage  at 33 (it should be somewhere between 38-40 at this level). I'm starting to think that I'm not just running bad but also making some bad pushes. I ran sngpt for a couple close spots, and they all came back as marginally +ev shoves/calls, just as I thought. It doesn't seem like I'll turn Sept into a positive month. I am stuck rake over 720 sngs this month. The reason why I'm getting crushed is that I am not getting nearly enough 1sts (about 4% lower than last month). I seem to be getting sucked out/running into monster hands all the time heads up. I think I might play some $6 sngs or something small to get my confidence up and try to have a ITM % over 35 for once this month. Yar, gg luck, hello variance.

Just played some 6.50s, I think 17. I lost $20 and I suspect my ITM was around 30. Obviously this is horribly low as I should be able to run at like a 30 ROI at these. Short term swings are ridiculous. Doesn't seem to matter what level sng I am playing, I just continue to run horribly. At least it's giving me reason to evaluate my game more.

I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while and I finally brought myself to do it. With uni just starting up, I don't have a ton of work obviously. I have logged only like 600 sit n goes this month, which is pretty weak, considering I played close to 2000 in August. I have taken far too many days off and am not logging as many hours as I should. I am hoping that writing this blog often will encourage me to play more so that I have more stuff to post about.

In September, I am stuck rake, which is like 1.8k. Pretty sour considering I just moved up to the 33s and 55s on Full Tilt Poker after absolutely crushing the 22s in August (for 5.5k). The games aren't any tougher really. There are still a ton of donators who play poorly. The only difference is that the regulars or pros as I call them are much better and they abuse any +ev situation, obviously cutting down on my hourly.

Right now I am working on getting comfortable with 12 tabling the 22s before I move back up. My bankroll is more than enough to play the 33s and 55s. I'm a little apprehensive to move up again though as I got massacred before. I am posting tons on 2+2 and talking to friends/people from the forum and from this my play has been validated to a large extent. I've read about variance and downswings, but never really experienced anything this horrible (like a 50 buyin downswing). Obviously it can happen through no or little fault of your own. I feel that my game is getting better almost every day.

I only played 45 today over a 2 hour session or so and ended up stuck about $250 at the 22s. This wasn't a horrible loss as I had 15 consecutive out of the moneys (OOTM) to finish the session, something that I have never done before. Poker is obviously about learning how good and how bad you can run. It's still a good time and I certainly love the game. In the next few days, I'm going to try to play more than 50 a day (hopefully well over that number) and to get that, I'll probably need to put in 3-4 hours in at night. Hopefully I finish this month with slightly positive figures though I kind of doubt that I will, considering that I will only be from Tues-Thurs, as I will be in Toronto on Friday and Saturday. I imagine I'll be able to squeeze in 200 sngs and finish the month only playing about 900 sngs which is seriously not enough. Most likely I will move up next month.