First losing session in 2 weeks

After being back in the game for two weeks now, I had my first losing session on Sunday night! Boy that's a good feeling!! Two weeks and no session for loser until the last day of the second week. I didn't know if I was just rushing or if I was actually winning, and it looks like I'm playing some solid poker, so I'm pretty excited. I really am feeling comfortable at the table and feel like I'm seeing things clearly, which the results are showing, and that's awesome.

Coming back from a small winner on Thursday night, I was eager to get back to play on Friday night, and I managed to get Joe to go up to Chumash with me. Neither of us wanted to go with the intentin of leaving early, and we had agreed to play a long night through. We left at about 8PM thanks to him lagging hard after we agreed to leave at 6PM. I was a little peeved for certain reasons but I quickly got over it as we hit the road and made it there a little over 25 minutes later. As we showed up to a full poker room, we put both of our names on the board for one of the four $100/$200 buy-in 2/5NL games going, which is the biggest game offered at the small indian casino....usually, usually except for Friday nights. As we put our names on the board we made our rounds checking out the games in progress, and as we made our way to the back of the poker room I saw the biggest game in Chumash's poker room, which was the $300-$500 buy-in NL game. Now this is no big game by any means, but it is the biggest game offered here, and it's only offered on Fridays and will usually be open on Saturday and Sunday too, but it usually won't last long besides on Friday night.

As we hovered over the game, there was one "power" stack with about $2,800 in front of him. There were other sized stacks mixed in, ranging from about $500-$1,500. The one thing that's always bugged me about this particular game, though, is that the blinds are still at 2/5. With the buy-in set at $100/$200 for the 2/5NL game, it would only make sense to me to have the $300-$500 buy-in game to have 5/10 blinds, but the blinds are the same. I don't know if that should or shouldn't be to anyone else, but it just doesn't make sense to me, as it usually plays as the same game as the $100/$200 game.

So as Joe and I were sitting there looking over the game, he mumbled to me that most of the players at the table were only mediocre 2/5NL players, and that even though the blinds were the same they shouldn't be in the higher buy-in game anyways. That told me that I should sit and play the $300-$500 game, and wouldn't you know it a seat was open. I bought in for the minimum of $300, as it was sure to be the same game as the $100/$200 that I've been profitting in. As soon as I sat down it was apparent that I would be able to make money at this table just as easily. There was 2 kids there that actually seemed like they were playing at a higher level, but I was able to battle them both on a higher pyschological level than the rest of the field, and ended up winning a couple pots against them as well.

A little while after I sat down the big stack left racking up 7 racks of reds, totalling $3,500. The table said he was in for about $1,800, so he took about $1,700 off of the rest of the table before going home. The money was plenty though, and I was sure to take some of it. Playing 8-handed and nearing the 2-hour mark I was sitting on about $1,000 when the concurrent big stack decided to start racking up. Upon seeing that the second biggest stack racked up, and leaving the game 6-handed usually meant that someone else was bound to get up and the game would break shortly thereafter. I decided to join the bailing crew, as I had hit my $600 goal for the night and was more than willing to quit since I was beyond my target profit anyways.

Sure enough the table broke and I was $700 ($705) winner on 2 hours. I had the mindset to play all night, but then again I wasn't gonna argue with winning $700 in 2 hours at a 2/5NL game. I ran into a couple buddies from high school as I was racking up, and ended up having a semi-lengthy conversation with the both of them while I was sweating Joe. It felt nice to catch up with them both a little, and it was kinda cool to remember good old high school times. Joe ended up finishing play without me getting back into a game, and the night ended up with another short session, and another decent win.

Saturday was a do nothing day, I just kinda layed around. I bought season one of The Deadliest Catch on DVD last week, and got around to watching to whole thing on Saturday. That's a frickin great show, and if you haven't seen it yet I strongly urge you to do so, it's just an awesome documentary show. I started watching the second season a little while ago on the Discovery Channel, and while it's one of the only few shows I do watch, I love it. After I finished watching that I just slept, and it was sooooo good.

Sunday I woke up late, and that was great fun. I ate lunch on this beach-front restaurant with my parents at about 2:30, and after that it was time to hit up Chumash again; I was still looking for an extended session. After playing a 6-hour session and coming up only $230 on Thursday and only getting in 2 hours on Friday, I was hungry for more action. I went in with the full intention of playing all day, and possibly through the night if the action was good. Unfortunately, it wasn't.........

I bought in for $200 and built it up to $350 shortly after sitting down. Things were looking alright right away, but as time wore on that's not how it was. The first major hand I was involved in after getting over $300, I ended up with Qd6d on a board of 5-4-K-3 with two diamonds. With a pot of around $250 thanks to a loose table, I was heads up with a guy on the turn, who I put all-in for about $115. I was open ended and flushing to the river, and as the 4d hit the river I thought I was good as I flipped over my cards. The opponent had KK though, and my flush made his boat. I had kind of let that blind side me cuz I thought I had won right as the dealer turned the 4d, but quickly realized the situation. Either way I had lots of outs going to the river, and even if I knew he had KK I still would have put the money in the pot, getting 3-1 for my money. I didn't mind losing that one, but what I did mind was the way my night was going to go.

For the rest of the day/night I was just getting killed by the board. My hands made other hands, my plays were getting shut down, and my big hands weren't hitting. All the while I was getting suited connectors for limps facing around four limpers every pot, but I just wasn't connecting with those either. I ended up stuck in the game for three buy-ins, or $600. After losing the third buy-in by 11:30PM, I decided to hit the pit for a short visit before I went home. I bought in for $200 at the 3-Card Poker table, and dwindling down to my last chips I squeezed out an Ad2d, and played it. The dealer hand qualified with K-high, and the dealer spread out my cards to reveal the Ad2d3d for a straight flush! That paid out $600+, and I felt a little better about the night. I laughed at myself for being a casino rat, but I do love the feeling. Not a lot of things stimulate my brain and my emotions like gambling does, and when it does it really excites me, whether I win or lose. I know I'm not alone on that one :)

After losing a little bit back to the casino I tipped the dealer and....headed back to the poker room. By this time it was around midnight and I was still looking for some sweet poker action. I rebought back into the NL game and played for two more hours before I made back $100 at the poker table. Overall it was a bad card night in the poker room, and I left kind of exhausted. I sat at the blackjack tables for another hour and a half before I left though, haha oh well.

By the end of the night I was down $500 at the poker table, and I dropped another $200 at the blackjack table before I left. Overall with my winnings at the 3-Card Poker table and my losses both to the casino and to poker, I left down $200 total on the night. If I would have left down $600 in the poker room, I would have really felt down on my luck. But forunately for me and my gambling tendencies, I was able to get some of it back on the floor and I felt better.

Tomorrow Joe and I are going back up, and I plan on going at least 2 more times before the week's end. I'll be shooting for $600 winning sessions, which I feel should be easily obtainable, so hopefully I'll do alright. We'll see how it goes, so stay tuned for