poker poker, it's all skill, start with the worse hand and go uphill

The last couple of weeks have been absolutely piss poor for me. I’m not stuck a sick chunk of money – probably only stuck 4 buy-ins, but I feel I should be up by a fair few. I’ve been employing pretty good table selection on PTY and I have been up against some massive action players, but my cards just don’t seem to be holding.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2042158 – this particular fish is relatively new to PTY and his unorthodox style of play combined with his absolutely unrivalled luck box...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2042136 – ok, so this hand – a good example of me exploiting a fishy player – his min re-raise pre meant that he had a pretty good holding, and therefore, I chose not to re-raise him and take the 3:1 on my money and play a flop – flopped fish-gin, got it all in and then had a brick shoved up my arse by the poker gods.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2042149 – some PTY fish however, don’t like to raise their big holdings pre – which causes me more pain...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2042226 – yer, I’m aware that the amount people will call off pre with weak holdings is going to make me money in the long-run, but why do they always have to hit? – okies, this hand, post flop is certainly open for discussion – should I go broke here considering the way it plays out?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2042251 – again, “lovin up the pre-flop call”

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2042238 – again – should I go broke here?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2042233 – I flip bad
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2042244 - real bad

OK – so sometimes you get into an interesting hand:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2042256 – I know this pot is small – but what do you think of my play on the turn? – not sure what he donk-bet-shoves here...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2042272 – the decision to re-raise the river was made difficult as the vil. Was playing 8/8 and the way I had played my hand gave the impression of a weak holding, thus he could have been making a half pot value bet with a house on the river – again, this hand is up for discussion.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2042285 – really like my line here – lol – certainly allowed me to get my hand paid off.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2042291 – was almost surprised that the river wasn’t a jack here – overall, I like how I played this hand, I was content to get all the money in with TPTK – and think it shows that I can make good reads even in the middle of a downswing.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2042306 – alrighty – well I have much history between me and this vil. He’s 3 bet 95% of my pre-flop raises, and so I have no problem re-raising him with AQo here, however, as he’s shown before, he will make massive calls pre-flop – the flop play is therefore based on the assumption of his weak holding, and the call is made because I am pretty sure my overs are good and I have a gutshot - so on the flop I’m 43% to win, not a massive such out – but was made rather amusing by Jack telling me “you’re good” before the pot was shipped – lol

all-in-all, I think my game has become more leaky than before, I am playing too many tables, and also – I’m having a massive problem with hands not holding up – so, in light of this I’m planning to take a shot at 50/1 as I see it as the only way to really focus on improving my game. I don’t plan to play poker forever, so I’m planning to employ some aggressive BRM techniques – allowing myself a 5-6 buy-in shot at the level above, but really putting some time into table selection and only playing 2-4 tables. If I lose my allotted money here I’m going to move back down, but use the same techniques at the 25/50c to make back the 10-12 buy-in before attempting 50/1 again. So – wish me luck...

gl at the tables, ty for reading

ps. If you had taken my advice for the Cheltenham weekend (last weekend) – you’d have seen “Hold-em”, an outside, hand-picked by myself, come second. The second race I told you to back – my chosen horses didn’t race, so you’d have lost nothing there, and in the final race Neptune Collonges came third – so alright if you took him e/w. Have to confess, I didn’t back any of these races as I was out all day, but managed to get a pony down on Franchoek for an even money win! Ty 4 the moneys