Hey all. So it's been a while since I've written in my blog. To be honest with myself and everyone, it's because I've spent most of my time trying to get "unstuck" from the NL400 game on Party Poker. As most of you who read this know, I tried moving up levels from the $200 6max game to the $400 game on March 1. Since moving up, I've played more hands since March 1 than I did the whole month of February. In that time, I've run worse than I ever have in my life. I'm running at -.75 BB/100 over 16,598 hands, for a grand total of -$995.12.

This bad run has been very tough on me mentally. Poker, as a hobby, has been something that I felt like I've worked very hard at over the past couple years. I've read countless books, magazine articles, and of course read/posted strategy at the 2+2 forums. Having this poor run has (wrongly) made me question many things I've thought I knew. I have, at times, hit a breaking point where I start questioning if I'm a winning player. I've got the bankroll, and the poker tracker stats to prove I am (at least, in the $200 games and below), but it's very difficult to come to grips with my results as I just moved up to the $400 games.

There have been other 2+2'ers, including many very respected ones, talking about going through 30,000 - 80,000 hand break even streaks. While I'm certainly not on their level of skill (or the stakes level), it gives me hope that perhaps my run is at least PARTIALLY due to the many nasty suckouts that I've encountered. Countless 2-5 outers, costing me anywhere from a small pot, to my whole stack...which brings me to a hand I played last Thursday night, the biggest pot I've lost in my life:

Villain in this hand is a semi regular in the $400 game, with stats of 66/44. He's one of the most wild and crazy players I've ever encountered. He seems to have a decent understanding of poker, but he makes far too many 'moves' at people. He is sooo loose and pounces on any sort of weakness with a hefty raise. He has position on me, and I've been limping my strongest hands, allowing him to raise and trapping everyone else in between us with a raise of my own. I've limp re-raised him at least 4 times before this hand.


NL$400, Effective Stacks: $900

UTG limps, I limp with QQ, Villain raiess to $16, button folds, very loose bad player calls in the SB, BB folds, UTG calls, I pop it up to $75 to go, Villain calls, SB calls, UTG folds.

3 of us to the

Flop ($245) 2 7 3

I check - with the reason that I've limp re-raised villain multiple times before and have always lead big on the flop. Previously he's either folded to my flop bet or called then folded on the turn. I am very sure that by checking, my show of weakness will prompt villain to stab at the pot with anything from AA to complete air. If I bet, and he decides to push, I'll be in a tough spot with 1 pair and a deep stack (2+ buyins). Villain's range here is any pair, any big Ace, and probably a multitude of suited connector type hands. Villain is in full maniac mode.

Villain complies and bets $200, SB folds and gives me the green light. I push all in for $826. My read is that I get a call here from 22, 77, 33, 88-JJ ( feel QQ-AA he would re-re-raise PF at least 50% of the time), and possibly some donktacular A7 type hand. Villain will fold all the rest of his huge range.

Villain insta-calls. He flips over JJ. Awesome. At this point, I'm 92% to win...I got Villain to put in > $800 with 8% equity.

Turn ($1884) J
River ($1844) 3

Villain collects $1844 with a turned set of Jacks to beat my pocket Queens.

So there's my new record... biggest pot lost: $1844. Also the record for most money I've ever lost in a hand. I've had an inordinate amount of suckouts in these last 16k hands. Certainly none as bad as this one, but it still stings with "only" $400 stacks.

There's been plenty of bad play too. I think my biggest mistakes in the $400 game have fallen into two categories:

1) Giving short stacks too much action. Starting at these stakes, a lot of people use a short stack strategy that revolves around playingwith about a 25% stack and basically pushing or folding. I need to tighten up my requirements, because paying off those $100 stacks with top pair adds up.

2 (and this is the bigger one)) Far too much bluffing bad players. It's like a disease I've acquired. I put these guys on a weak hand, and I raise their weak bets. Most of the time I'm correct, and they are extremely weak (bottom pair, middle pair, gutshot draw, etc), some of the time I'm wrong and they have top pair or better. In either case, they usually call. Lately, when they have shit and call, they suck out. When they don't have shit and call, I've put in a significant sum of chips with poor equity...which as we all know is a recipe for losing. The third, and most frustrating scenario is we've both got shit, I raise them on the turn, they call, the river blanks they check, and I check behind assuming that if they called on the flop and turn, they'll also call on the river. Then their A high busted gutshot or whatever takes it over whatever garbage or missed draw I have.

So there you have it. Hopefully if I get some time tomorrow, I'd like to make a post regarding the psychology of losing, and how I'm going to get my head out of my proverbial ass. Additionally, I need to document some (mostly obvious) thoughts regarding around the proper adjustments to some of the more common player types at NL400, that vary slightly different from what I saw at NL200. I'm going to keep on trucking... I'm still reasonably confident that I can come out of this month with a profit. We'll see.