First off, let me start by venting my frustrations. I have played 3800 hands in October and have been hit n run at an ungodly frequency. Every single player I face (both regs and fish) either a) leaves as soon as they double up or b) leaves as soon as I am regaining momentum and mounting a comeback. I am running almost 9 buyins below ev (graph to come) and even though my redline is higher than its ever been (I used to have the tagfish redline), I cannot win a pot at showdown to save my life. OK, /Whine.

I did however play an epic match the other night at 1/2. I caught the tail end of a tilting regulars session (he was running like Satan, I would have been tilted too) and immediately put my name on the waiting list. I was praying for him to quit and my prayers were answered when he finally waved the red flag and I had the fish and his 500bbs all to my self. I sat, ran like God, and had his stack in 67 hands. Now, this is all pretty unspectacular, but my reason for telling this story is because there was history between me and this particular fish. I had played him earlier in the day at .50/1 and he had amassed a 400bb stack (running like the Messiah) and of course, hit n runs me when he has to take his "pee break" and never comes back. So it turns out that sometimes there is justice in poker after all, just not all the time.

Besides some spewy calls, a few costly misclicks, and numerous nonsensical bluffs, I'm actually happy with how I've been playing lately. I've been studying poker a ton lately and even though my results haven't been great, I definitely feel like I am improving. I took 2p2er Irockhoes' advice to heart. Basically what he said, is if you really want to get good at poker, you need to spend just as much time studying the game as playing it. And that's exactly what I've been doing lately.

I know its pretty much blasphemy to shout on a non-Leggo coach on here, but I've learned so much from this particular guy that it definitely bares mentioning. Hunter Bick, aka BeachJustice, on FullTilt is an absolutely sick HUNL video producer and coach. As soon as I can afford his services, I am insta-booking sessions with him. In his video's, he talks about non-obvious ways to determine whether your opponent is a good player or a fish. The way to find out he says, is to look for the thin value bets. Any donkey can make a "sick" A high call or sometimes even call down larger bluffs, but it takes a good player to valuebet third pair on the river when it is correct to do so.

Another part of my game I've been experimenting with lately is overbets. I've found that overbetting works best when you a) have the nuts or near nuts and you are fairly confident that your opponent has a strong hand or b) when it's obvious that your opponent wants to go to showdown as quickly as possible. Thus far, its worked out pretty well. It's interesting to see how regs and fish adjust and how spazzy they can get when you overbet.

Oh and one more thing, I feel like a complete POS for not being a leggo subscriber. Probability gave me that one week free subscription and I was obviously impressed with the site's content, esp for someone who strives to move up to MSNL within the coming months. Furthermore, I am somehow a "featured blog member", even though I don't think this blog is particularly interesting or consider myself a very good writer, so to have featured blog status and not actually be a member of the site is just plain wrong. You rub my back, I rub yours. Probability or anyone other LP higher up that reads this, if you accept full tilt transfers, I will sign up tomorrow, guransheed.