July recap

I suck at NLHE tourneys. I played in 8 this month and I don't think I lasted past 1.5 hours in any of them. One night last week, I played in 3 and was out in 45 minutes in each of them. To put it in perspective, these tourneys can run 5 to 7 hours, and the money bubble is close to halfway (2.5-3.5 hours). I'm getting trapped and hosed. I flop TPTK, and I run into overpair. I hit TPTK against an opponent I put on JJ or QQ pre-flop, and the flop comes K92, w/ 2 hearts. The turn is a heart and the river is a heart. I bet flop and turn OOP, but I have to check/fold to his river bet. 1/2 the time he has the heart, and 1/2 the time he doesn't. I'm in the SB with K8, and complete, the BB raises a little and I call. Flop is 832, which is excellent for my hand. I bet, he raises, I call. Turn is a 4, I check/call. River is another 3, I check/call again, only for him to turn over 88. The last 8 in the deck comes on the flop to enable him to suck out max value.

The good news is that I don't suck at PLO8 cash games. Moved up and played a lot of 2/4, aka 400PLO8. I killed it this month.

bonus: $55
400PLO8: $1800+$1110
200PLO8: $885-$35
100PLO8: ($330)
HU PLO8 SNGs: $325
NLHE tourneys: ($710)
Total: $3100

I tried spending some time tonight watching a NLHE tourney to see if not playing would help me observe better and enable me to figure out what my opponents are doing, but it didn't work. I can't tell if a player is making a river call with Q6s (was in the BB and saw the flop for free) because he is good and knows his top pair weak kicker is good, or because he is bad and overvalued a pair in his hand.

I do know this, a lot of players seem to call light on the flop. A lot of continuation bets are called, though I have noticed that the active players are c-betting a lot smaller than I do. They are all better 1/2 the pot, quite possibly to save money to be able to fire again on the turn.

Maybe I did learn something after all....