Weeks 19 and 20

As many of you followers (are there any of you?) know, when I don't post, it's because things went bad.  So, without further ado, here's how bad it was over the past 2 weeks:

5/21/2014: -671 NLHE, -45 trny
5/26/2014: -669 NLHE, -45 trny

Both times, I could have left with a smaller loss, or profit even, but just kept playing despite knowing I was not playing my best.

The only redeeming event in the past 2 weeks is that, even though I didn't cash in the tourney on 5/26, I did final table, so I earned myself a new 5k stack on a second semi-final day.  I have chosen 6/10, so now I will have 2 semi-finals from which to make the finals.  While I would love to qualify for the finals from the semis on 6/10, it will be tough as I expect most players will have 10k stacks that day.  I hope to use that day as a study session to figure out the best approach for my 6/17 semi-finals, where I will be playing with a 10k stack.

I still have one more week to earn extra 1k chips for my 6/10 semi, and I will likely go back this Tuesday.

As for cash game analysis, I finally got around to updating my spreadsheet.  Week 19 was bad luck all around, and yet I could have left with a profit had I been disciplined.  I was disciplined for a bit as I managed to fold KK pre-flop to an UTG limp-raise which is almost (and was again) AA.  However, that wasn't the only time I ran into AA:

I called a 3-bet PF from a very loose-aggressive player with K9s, and called his all-in for about 50% of the pot on the 732r flop.  He woke up with AA.  I had JJ on the button which I had straddled.  I 3-bet an known player who plays lots of hands PF, and he 4-bet me, and I 5-bet shoved and he showed AA.  In another pot, this one, in retrospect I played too aggressively for the opponent, I 4-bet shoved 44, and he won with AA.  For the first time in a couple of weeks, I lost my flips.  So all of that together made for a pretty bad session.  The more I lost, the more aggressive I became (44 4-bet shove as an example).  When it comes to tilt control, that is something I definitely have to work on:  No matter how the game is going, especially if the game is going bad, I need to keep my mind open (it tends to shut off and I'm unable to process the blatant information right in front of me) and keep calm.  Easier said than done, but identifying the problem is the first step to being able to find the corrective actions to prevent it.

Week 20, I think I may still have been on tilt from the week before.  I played a lot more hands, played them more aggressively (very high raise %, high VPIP, and very low limp %).  Doesn't help that I got unlucky too in big pots.  One of the hands after my phone died, had me with AcKc on the button, straddled.  I raised 4 limpers to 25, and the SB 3-bet to 100, which I 4-bet shoved $250 and he called with KdTd.    He was like "you've been really aggressive from the button", which was true.  So, after I got myself in the best position possible, he flops a T and I'm stacked again.  After that, I overplayed every hand, and stacked myself with top-pair, no flush draw on a monotone board, and my opponent had the only thing he could after check/calling the flop c-bet and c/raising the turn bet: a strong flush.

So, here are my cumulative results:

-665: 1/2 NLHE
+25 3/6 LHE
-23 3/6 LO8
+225 tourney
+200 promos
-11.50 food
= -249.50

Considering, it's not all bad, but given the quality of the players in the game, I find that I'm lowering myself too much to their level, rather than improving my play to beat them.

For the next few sessions, I'm going to go later, so that I focus on the tourney and the cash games will be secondary (for the past couple weeks I've been trying to get in 2 hours of cash before the tourney, and then some afterwards).  Secondly, I plan not to chart my play, but write down the hands that "known" players are playing and how they are playing them.  I need to figure out if there are some exploits I can take advantage of, or if there are some things that they are doing naturally which take advantage of my game.