Fuck it--plus fucked update

I am thinking I will have to give up my dream. I am not good enough and I don't seem to be getting any better. I lost a ton tonight. I haven't put it into TM but I think I will have lost everything I won this month. I was so excited because I had run my roll to within 30 bucks of moving up to the 24s, but I lost back 12 buyins.

I know there will be ups and downs, but I feel like I'm just lucky when I win, and bad when I lose, and I can't shake the feeling.

Okay, boots, go to town. It's tragic when people dare to want something, isn't it? It makes them pitiful. I know.

***

So what happened? Well, I played ten games earlier today and ran pretty badly. I mean, you can feel quite good about things when you run into two flopped flushes and still end up ahead.

Tonight I played 13 games. It actually feels like more, so I may have dropped one somewhere. Maybe I played 7 and 6 tables and not 8 and 6 as I thought?

I know 13 games is not much, but I didn't feel good at all. I felt like I was struggling the whole time.

So the first game I finished 2nd. I had a lead heads up, but the other guy outran my TT with AQ. Then he beat my 9 high with his 7 high. So meh.

2. A guy raised to 3x at t300. I had AQ in the BB and 2.1K behind and shoved over. He called and showed 66. There's just nothing to say about his play. He should push or fold. If he'd pushed, it would have been the same result. But he probably should fold. I'd need to look at it in Wiz. Raising to 3x is awful though. So his hand held up, just a standard beat. IGH 6th.

3. I have 97 in the BB at t120. One guy limps. Now, this hand is fucking incredible, and I have to say, it really sucks that the poker ghods don't punish these retards for this kind of shit. The flop comes Q97 and I lead out decently. He calls. Turn is another 7. I bet just about the pot and he calls again. I'm putting him on a queen of some sort. Retards love to limp QJ/QT, so I'm not worried that he calls. The river is a blank, I shove and he snapcalls. He has QQ. Sigh. A J97 flop, I double up, and he gets what he deserves. But that's a terrible cooler. IGH 5th.

4. I have AK and make a slightly bigger than standard raise. This is because Full Tilt Shortcuts is set up to make raises that are hard to adjust in a hurry. Anyway, I don't mind. One guy calls. The flop comes KQx and I bet enough to get it in on the turn. Which I regret because yes, this tard called an EP raise from the tightest player at the table with KQ and flopped perfect. I don't think you can get away from my hand, and I'll double up a ton of the time there. Not this time though. IGH 8th.

5. The next game I win. The other guy pretty much handed it to me by playing super weakly HU. The game was a textbook example of why you should be super aggro heads up.

6. At t240, having mostly been card dead, I shove UTG with AJ. I have about 5.5BB. I think folding would be bad but I don't like pushing into a crowd. I liked it more when the SB called with K8. Even though he had 3.5K, his call is absolutely fucking atrocious. They do that quite a bit though, just randomly decide that hands that are never going to be ahead of your range are just the shit. Well, I guess he was right. He flopped a K and IGH 6th.

7. So the next tourney, I'm not sure. The guy who shoved was a regular on the button. He had been reasonably aggro but not actually out of line. I had A7. I felt that I could well be ahead of his range. He showed 66 and I didn't improve. I had a few chips left and chipped back up to 1K. I shoved A6 and got called by 55 and A2. 55 was very short, so even though I didn't improve again, that didn't finish me off. But I only had a bit less than 3BB so I got it in with Q7 next hand. Meh.

8. The next tourney I had KJ in the CO and made a very loose push. I felt the guys behind me were tight enough to make it good. So that was a bad read because one guy called off his stack with KTs. The other had AQ, which was a bit more reasonable, and his hand held up. IGH 6th.

9. The next tourney I got into the money. I'm very aggressive in the money, maybe too much so. Definitely something I need to work on. But shoving ATC into tight players when you have 8ish BB at t400 and they have 6ish is good imo. Well, good so long as they don't call with Q2 when you have T5. I couldn't believe that. It's such a bad call. He had no idea at all that I was pushing that wide and Q2 doesn't even beat a random hand. I'd have folded in his shoes, even if I knew I was pushing ATC. So that hurt. I really take it amiss when people just gamble. I hate gambling and try to avoid doing it. Anyway, I couldn't do anything from that point on, so I got 3rd. Which sucked, because I had actually played well, much better than the tard who called my shove, who had been furnished with great cards more than once when someone else pushed.

10. So I have 2.3K at t300 and some guy pushes UTG with 2.8K. He's a tight player, so his range is not that wide, but I have QQ. I am just never folding, even though I have been having a streak of losing big allins with big hands when I have decent equity. I am good against his range, I think, and I accept that I'll lose sometimes against AJ, but I'll crush JJ-99. Not so much KK though, which is what he had. Yet again the bitches let me down and IGH 5th.

11. What do minraises mean? They sometimes mean "I have a monster and want action" and more often mean "I have a shit hand and want to steal the blinds cheaply". This time, when I shoved over a minraise at t240 with TT, I found out that it meant monster. I think you have to get it in with 6BB and TT though, even though it's going to hurt to run into AA.

12. So some guy with a huge raising range 3xs it. I cover him decently and shove over with KQs. I figure I will crush his range and I'm right. He calls with 87s. This is just gambling. I mean, he might convince himself that his cards are "live" but he's crushed by any reasonable range I'm shoving there. Yeah, but to be crushed you have to not suck out to a flush. So I have 700 chips left and need a miracle. No miracles today though. I stick it in with 54 and the same fish calls with A2. Do I get the same touch of luck he got? Do I fuck! I'm not fond of flushes today.

13. Finally, I sneak into the money and into second by playing cagily and possibly quite well, but when I get it in with 99 vs QJ, you just feel the Q coming. Which it does.

So that was that. It doesn't seem all that unreasonable when you see my bustout hands. Just looks like I wasn't all that lucky. But I didn't play well in the rest of the game. I haven't looked in Wiz but I'm sure I missed shoves, and I put in too much money with bad holdings a few times iirc.

I was feeling good the other day, but the luck was definitely going my way. Not so much that I was winning confrontations (I wasn't really) but I was getting decent cards just when needed. I have been feeling badly out of sorts too. On Stars, I can't seem to play HORSE at all, and the 8 games have been a tragedy for me, and I ought to do okay in them.

You know, you'll laugh if you play poker because I only lost 20 bucks today (although Tourney Manager has certainly misplaced a couple I think, because I'm a bit more than that down from what I had yesterday), and I'm still ahead for the month. It's not the results though. It's how it feels. Maybe better tomorrow, hey? At least I have played more this month. I played 66 games last month and have played the same already this month. And I suppose I won't give in. I'll probably get 20 in tomorrow. These are such small numbers, I know, and I know that luck is everything in the short term. But knowing and feeling are two different things, right?