I took the weekend off from playing after my last session.  Well I didn't play any cash games, I did mess around in some sit and go's while I watched some TV.  I gave myself a new sit and go challenge for the next few months.   Whenever I don't feel like playing cash games at night, I'm going to play sit and go's ranging from $20-$100 buy-ins and see if I can win 5k.  It'll take me a while but lets see if I can do it.  When I play sit and go's I rarely play holdem.  I play all the mixed games, mostly HU.  I've been doing quite well at the Omaha hi/lo heads-up matches.  Anyways, we'll see how that goes.

I did grind some cash games today and it wasn't very exciting.  Got stuck early on, but managed to win most of it back and only lost about a buy-in.  I played another 2/4NL table today and managed to lose -1.5 buyins which completely sucked.  I'll post the hand below but basically I ran QQ into KK in a blind battle, kind of a cooler.  I'm still not used to losing a stack at 2/4NL compared to losing one at 1/2NL.  When I lose a buy-in in a hand at 1/2, its $200, and I've played enough 1/2 to be pretty desensitized by that.  But now when I lose a buy-in at 2/4.. its $400.. just stings a little more till I get used to it.  In any given session you can be up and down 3-4 buy-in fairly quickly.. so playing 2/4NL I need to get used to be stuck $1500 and not let it bother me.  Mind you that will happen only when I'm playing 2/4 full time, right now I'm still paying 1/2 and just chasing the occasional fish at 2/4.

Let's take a look at some of today's hands..

Winner:


^ Very poorly played by my opponent, he should be folding AJ in that spot all day long.  Worked out nicely for me though.

Loser:


^ Here's a heads-up pot I lost today.  I don't often call a 3 bet with 10,7s, but with the flow of the match and him 3 betting me every other hand.. I decided to play it.  I get probably the best flop I could ask for with my hand but brick the turn and river.  I don't mind my play this hand because I do have a lot of fold equity along with all my outs.  Most players will fold top pair shitty kicker in that spot, but I guess this guy just read my soul and snapped me off with K5.

Loser:


^ Here's that 2/4NL hand I was talking about.  There just isn't much I can do here at all.  Players just play so damn aggressively in blind battles that QQ is usually huge here.  But I happen to run into KK and get stacked.  Oh well.

Winner:


^ Here's the biggest pot I won today.  There is nothing to say here whatsoever.  Nothing to analyze because the cards played themselves out.  The other guy caught a cooler flop and had no choice but to give me his whole stack.  Luckily for me this was at a deep table so the pot was fairly large.

As you can see there wasn't too much interesting spots today, all pretty standard stuff. September is coming to an end and I think I'm going to make some new goals for October.  Its so much harder to play a lot of poker in the summer, its always nice out and wants to be cooped inside.  But as the cold weather approaches there will be a lot more time to play poker and I plan on having a HUGE winter.  I want to be crushing 2/4NL going into the new year.  For that to happen I need to really start focusing and bring my game to the next level.

Jay