In the holiday spirit.

I'm going to combine a few sessions I've had over the past few days as I'm pretty busy with all the holiday business going on. I played some more small NL cash games online and I'm pretty sure the bad run is ending. Fitting that it ends right around Christmas time... thanks Santa.

There's one key hand I'll talk about from the past few sessions. I had KK in the BB, UTG player limps and so does a MP player. It then folds around to be and I bump it up. Both players call. The flop comes Q 7 2 rainbow, a flop I like very much. I check in hopes the other two players hit the queen. I know the MP player is aggressive once the flop comes, and with his position, he will bet if checked to him more often than not. It checks to him and he does bet about half the pot and I then raised three or four times what he bet. The other player folds and the bettor calls. The turn is a K and I come out betting. He min-raises me and I then move all-in and he calls. He called quickly and I was thinking he had a king, maybe even KQ, but I was wrong and he held AA and I took down a big pot of about $18. I'm not sure as to why people slowplay aces all the time, it just doesn't seem like it works at the smaller limits. Sure, when you are playing good players you have to mix the game up, but I'd rather just player ABC poker and bet your good hands. I do consider myself a good player though and maybe he was mixing it up with me, but you also have to realize that if a good player is going to put his chips in against you, he probably has a good hand. Even if you have aces, you need to think about what happened throughout the hand and sometimes lay them down.

Anyways, I also played one MTT for $1 with 313 entrants and placed 93rd. I was doing well and doubled early and then doubled quickly again, both times getting all-in preflop with AA. My stack was crippled when I held KQ in the cutoff and limped into a 5-way pot. The flop came K J 10 and I got all-in with another player. I made the all-in move and he called me down with K10, so I was in good shape with outs to a higher two pair and an open-ended straight draw. Nothing came and my stack was hurt badly. I hung around for a little while longer and gained a little back before moving in with 66 against an opponent with AJ and lost the race. No big deal. I opt to play tight early until the blinds hit 50/100 and then I loosen up a bit. I usually always make it to the first break and then either bust quickly or go deep. I'd rather bust quickly trying to accumulate chips than to go deep and bubble out or finish just inside the money. I am playing to win these tournaments, not cash in as many as possible.

In summary, I've had winning sessions my past 6 or 7 times playing and it feels good to not be running terrible again.

Session:
Limit: .05/.10 NL
Tables: 2
Time: 10.91 hrs
Outcome: +69.91

Overall:
Cash game hours: 36.47
Net: -10.26
Hourly Rate: -0.28 per hour

Tournament hours: 3.9
Net: -4.00
Hourly Rate: -0.98 per hour

BANKROLL BALANCE: $240.78