OK...

Well I've been lazy, I haven't been posting recently so here's the update...

I had minor BR fluctuations and was hovering between 80 and 110 for the past few days until the 24th. I decided to play some ring games, .25/.50 NLHE, which I seem to have pretty good luck with. Unfortunately my KK ran into AA, bye bye $25. I lost a little more playing some .10/.25, no real big hands I just wasn't hitting much, made it hard to win.
Then I decided to play a 20+2 sng because I had played in one a few nights before and they seem to be much softer now than I remember them. I woke up to KK, raised the pot preflop and was reraised all-in by a player in late position. I immediately call and he flips over 99, he flops his 9 and I go out in 8th. Since I didn't possibly think lightning could strike twice, I played in another 20+2 where the following hand occurs
I have AQos in early position, I raise the pot and am called by the SB. The flop comes under me and my opponent thinks for a second and bets the pot. I smell something funny and reraise him to put him all-in. He thinks for about 10 seconds, at which point I know my read was 100% right. He calls anyway and shows AJ, turn is a jack. I was crippled and busted out shortly after. This left my BR at a whopping 6.84, so I played a $5.50 basically just for fun and to try some stuff out, bubbled.
This session really bothered me. I can handle losing coinflips, I can handle flush draws hitting. The reason this bothered me is because of the plays that I made. I couldn't have played these hands much better than I did, and I still lost. I felt like a running back who breaks 8 tackles to score a last second game winning touchdown in the Super Bowl, only to have the play called back because someone on the other side of the field, completely away from the play, held someone that couldn't have gotten to the ball anyway.
So I decided what the hell, I'd go back to the tried and true money maker, and today took a trip to Empress in Joliet for some 5/10 action. I really didn't catch much for about the first two hours and pretty much fluctuated from being down $50 to up $10. I picked up a couple of small pots playing A8 and A9 in late position and hitting my ace. I went on a dinner break and then shortly after I came back, my pocket 3's blossomed into quads and I took down a big pot. Still, a lot of my draws weren't hitting and my QQ got cracked. I basically bled back down to $100 up and then left.
Looking back, I think in the last hour or so I was prolly playing some of my hands too far and chasing draws that, while I was getting 10 to 1 on the flop, were probably too remote. I am currently finishing up Making of a Poker Player by Matt Matros, but I think after that I'm going back to re-read Sklansky and Malmuth's Winning Low Limit Hold 'Em to help my plug up a couple of small leaks I may have developed so I can maximize these sessions again. Since I finished up $100, I'm going to go ahead and redeposit on Full Tilt. I'm probably going to focus on SNGs and MTT tournaments. I'm pretty comfortable with my cash game play right now. My reads online and live are pretty solid so I'm thinking I can hopefully parlay this into my first public MTT win, but we shall see. So long as I can play solid and consistently money in these tournaments, I should still be ok but a big score would really be nice.
I'm rededicating myself to this blog now and I'm gonna chalk up my missing posts to uneventful short sessions and holiday laziness. Thanks to all of you who continue to read, while I am doing this for me, to know people are reading helps me feel more obligated to continue to make entries.

BR: $100, let's give it one more shot.

- Huck