Went out last night to Sky City in Adelaide with some friends, and one of those friends had been insisting she'd introduce me to Monsterdong at some stage. Well, last night was that night.

Tried to avoid talking about hands too much because when you play poker all day the last night you want is to talk about whether or not it was EV+ to 3-bet your 35o in late position with a TAG on the right and a Nit on the left while it's a full moon and your arse is pointing at the stars.

So we just had drinks and played Craps and Blackjack and and eventually decided to play $5/5 NL Cash in their Poker Pit which kind of reminds me of a home game in the way that it's pretty damn crap, like the kind of setup you'd find in someone's garage. Sat with the max buy of $400 and never reloaded, scooping the first two hands after I'd sat down with top pair for about $250, then sat out a few hands until I got dealt 44, flopped 994, scooped a bit more, dealt AA, flop was horrendous with a Flush Draw (though I had the right Ace to Continue), ended up getting killed for $200 though.

Anyhow, all of that is kind of irrelevant. The next four hands in a row were the best. I had JT Hearts, flopped 89Q hearts for a Straight Flush, and was bet into all the way (all in eventually) by A2 hearts. (Monsterdong declared I run "so good" and shook his head vigourously. I think this was the sum of our poker discussion on the night) Ship! Very next hand, K9 on the blind, check into flop, K93 on flop, guy immediately declares All-in after I check. I call since this game is pretty soft, and he turns over AA and the board never pairs. Then I won a hand which was heavily bet with AKo, and after that won a hand with pocket 7's with a high ranked board.

I decided it was a good time to leave about now, having shipped $1500 in a very short amount of time.



[Sidenote: Full Tilt is still kind of up and down. Overall, I'm feeling happier with my results though. I'm playing more solidly/]

After a poor run and my wondering wth was going on with my game, the last week has been superb, and I'm up about $6.5k, primarily through Heads Up Cash Games and a good slather of the $1.5m GTD $535 Sattellites (I won 4, but for some reason only 3 showed up on the leaderboard).

Realising I couldn't really help but play slightly higher stakes and blow my small bankroll, I did the next smartest thing. I increased my bankroll so that the stakes I'm playing still meet BRM strategies.

Some really amazing hands and flops and a weird run of really good starting hands that made me look LAG, and then surprise, I have AA over and over. One notable hand was actually in a Super Turbo, I had pocket two's with the big stack but got called by the next largest stack (Would have left me with 40 chips if I lost). Opponent had KK, my flop came down as T26, with another 2 on the river for good effect. Apparently AKo is the nuts against AA too, all in preflop, and then flopped KK3.

My favourite sick hand was actually in the 1.5m GTD, Andy Bloch was on my table and I admit I was being a bit aggressive trying to nail the $1k bounty on him. Had KT, flop Q67, bet 700 into 1200, called by Andy and Random, turn was a T, bet 1300, Andy folds, Random shoves for 1755 total. I call because I cant drop it over 455, and river the K, he shows AA.

Ended up in a SNG with braminc and had a good chat, the guy has a custom avatar which is no easy feat I imagine, racking up the 1M Points. He has an excellent SNG instructional video too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dro8MvdLezQ (I'll point out this is braminc but it's not actually er... very instructional...)

Wish me more god runs.

Full Tilt Poker 1/2 NL Ring Game, 9 handed.

Sitting on about $65, on the button, dealt AQo.

Flatted the blinds by 3 players, I raise to $8, get two callers to the flop.

Flop: Jc Kh 8c

Both check, I try to steal and bet in $16. One folds, the other moved all in and has me well covered.

This player had been playing LAG as hell, and I tanked for about 20 seconds and then... called.

Turn: Ks

River: 2d

King Laggyson shows: Ac 3c

Ship it.

Well, my forum post asking for advice got a response from Seabeast which really just kicks me in the arse to reaffirm what I thought - I'm being an idiot with playing out of depth.

I've run pretty damn well in ring games in the last few days on iPoker, picking up 7 or 8 buyins without much effort or time at all. The games just seem to be so damn soft. Full Tilt is still slightly troublesome but for the last while I'm doing ok, cashing a lot more than usual because I think I'm starting to grasp some more higher level thinking stuff more readily. Managed to cash 4th in a decent MTT the other day after checking out the previously mentioned SEABEAST's videos. Really, really good late stage tournament advice.

I have a $75 token on Full Tilt which I'm using now for the 6-max $18,500 GTD on right now so hopefully I can score a final table?

OK, so, here's the quest of a losing player to turn his game around and start scoring some decent cashes again. Hopefully the tools offered to me by Leggo will help me out.

My first big challenge comes in a few weeks at the Victorian Poker Championship.

I'll basically use this to throw up interesting scenarios I've had trouble with, and stories of beats and cashes.