Finally a heater session

I've been on a 8 buyin downswing at 25NL to start the month off nicely including -4 buyins this morning. This evening was finally a different story than me making second best hands and getting set>set every session.

A little more than +6 buyins for this evening's session. I really need to figure out how to stop myself from forcing hands and spewing when I run card dead for 5k hands. It really is cheaper just to fold because what I've already put in the pot is gone. My game has become high variance lately due to the card dead-ness going on.

I always am trying to tweak my game to squeeze out a little more in the winrate department, but I usually end up going to far, saying screw it, go back to my somewhat nitty TAGish game and profit. I need to stay in that mode to beat 25NL, however that mode does not seem to do very well when I try to move up so I am still going to try to figure some stuff out, but not go overboard with it.

I don't know if I've posted this already, but my goal is going to be to be able to play 50NL as my regular game by the end of November with a decent, positive winrate. I just have to keep working at it. Some days I feel like giving up and staying at 25NL forever, but then I think back to how I thought the same thing about moving up to 25NL.

This current moving up process has been a lot tougher on me than the last, both financially and psychologically. I don't think my psychological bankroll is nearly as large as my actual bankroll. I'm not sure what the key BR number will be for me to not play scared at 50NL, but I haven't found it yet.

A couple interesting hands from this evening's session. I won't post anything from the rest of the month because it would just be me whining ;)

Hand #1 is against an 88/25/3 with a 3bet of 20% who likes to try to shove people around any time he catches a whiff of weakness. PF plan was to stack off post flop on a non-A/K high flop. I found this hand interesting because I think the flop minraise was really my only option here to get all the money in against weaker hands. A larger raise would usually fold out most of his non-KK+ range (he was not your regular 88/25 donk, he seemed to be thinking at least a little bit and actually had a W$SD of 49%) but the minraise gives him just enough room to bluff-shove with worse.

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP1: $37.00
MP2: $21.60
CO: $25.40
BTN: $34.15
SB: $5.65
BB: $27.40
UTG: $4.25
Hero (UTG+1): $24.00

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is UTG+1 with J J
1 fold, Hero raises to $1, MP1 raises to $3, 5 folds, Hero calls $2

Flop: ($6.35) 4 Q 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP1 bets $4, Hero raises to $8, MP1 raises to $21, Hero calls $13 all in

Turn: ($48.35) 5 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($48.35) 8 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $48.35
MP1 mucks A K
Hero shows J J (a pair of Jacks)
Hero wins $45.95
(Rake: $2.40)

Hand #2 was a gift. 2 hands prior to this I sucked out on a guy with trash when he gave me more than enough pot odds on the turn for my OESD+FD and I shoved the nuts when I caught the river vs his flopped 2 pair. The hand prior to this I got caught bluffing by the BB in the hand posted below and I'm running fairly LAGgy on this table. Reasoning behind the call of BB's reraise on the flop was that I was positive he had top pair or better now and BTN definately has a top pair hand - he was running 10/8/2.5 so I never put him on the flush draw since the Ad is out unless he has exactly KdQd and he doesn't have AA, plus he could hit and still lose if he happens to have the FD.

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $26.00
BB: $10.15
UTG: $47.25
UTG+1: $25.95
UTG+2: $32.15
Hero (MP1): $35.95
MP2: $47.35
CO: $25.05
BTN: $10.30

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is MP1 with 7 7
3 folds, Hero raises to $1, 2 folds, BTN calls $1, 1 fold, BB calls $0.75

Flop: ($3.10) A 3 7 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $2, BTN calls $2, BB raises to $5, Hero calls $3, BTN calls $3

Turn: ($18.10) 6 (3 players)
BB bets $4.15 all in, Hero raises to $8.55, BTN calls $4.30 all in

River: ($30.85) K (3 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $30.85
BB mucks 3 3
Hero shows 7 7 (three of a kind, Sevens)
BTN mucks Q A
Hero wins $0.25
Hero wins $29.10
(Rake: $1.50)