I’ve had a really rough run lately.

I don’t think I’ve been playing badly. But, I’ve been forgetting to get up when I should.

On the one hand, when the deck goes cold and I lose my buy-in, I should get up and go… but instead, I’ve been rebuyong and trying to win my way back. Or, on the other hand, I’ve been trying to win too much when things go well, instead of adopting a double-up-and-go approach.

The result is sessions like last night, when I lost $200 then, with my third buy-in, won my way back to about $325. I should have left at that point but I stayed instead, staying much too late and losing every chip before getting up. Ugh.

As I write this, I’m waiting for a seat whichi plan to use for only 60-90 minutes. I will try to double up then get out with it. we will see.

After two consecutive losses, I headed back to the Hard Rock last night for a nice solid session. It was a Saturday night, which meant that the place was packed. It took almost twenty minutes to get into the garage, park and make my way through the crowd to the Poker Room and, once I got there, I saw an enormous waiting list (> 20 names) to play my game, 1/2 NL. Since I wanted to get to a table as soon as possible, I asked to be placed on the wait list for 1/2 as well as 2/5 and for a $60 Turbo SNG.

They called me almost immediately for 2/5 and, with a little nervousness, I made my way to the table. The 2/5 game has the same %100 max buy-in as every other one, but, generally, players come there with much more cash and gamble, so I was really going to have to play tight and careful, picking my spots before entering pots. But, when I got to the table, I was surprised to see that it was a 1/2 table after all and the brush had sent me there by mistake. Ah well.

The game went right almost from the start. I won the first two hands I was dealt with legitimate hands and stole the third pot with a continuation bet. I built a $300 stack almost immedately and never really looked back. The deck went cold for almost an hour but I hung in there and, when the cards started to come again, I was ready. I played until the table broke and left with $435 profit which more than makes up for the last couple of sessions and leaves me with a nice healthy bankroll to start the year.

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I’m back in Florida after a long summer vacation with my family and I am about to head out with a friend to my home room, the Hard Rock in Hollywood for what I am thinking of as the start of the 2009/2010 Poker Season. The World Series just ended (except for the Main Event Final Table, of course) and the school year is about to begin so, what the hell, let’s call it a new year on the Poker calendar, too.

My goals for this year are:

1) Serious bankroll management

I’ve heard lots of pros say that you should never have more than 10% of your bankroll on the table at any time. Chris Fergeson even councils getting up if your winnings are substantial enough to put your table stakes above 10%! I’ve seen too many of my big nights disappear too quickly and the memory of my “up 900 then down 200″ debacle is still fresh. So, this year is going to be about focusing on slow, steady progress on building the bankroll. That’s going to mean adopting a “double up and go” mentality instead of chasing the big wins.

2) Consistent play

I used to say that I wanted a card guard with the letters DPR on it, standing for “Don’t Play Rags.” That simple rule is the surest way to avoid losing big pots and I want to do a better job of mucking rags this year. No more A8s for me!

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I’ve left the Hard Rock after about two and-a-half hours of the the most fun I’ve had playing poker in a long time. My buddy and I sat at the same table and we just had a blast… the banter and fun around the table was great… which almost makes it OK that I lost my entire buy-in, with a large chunk of it going to him.

I didn’t follow my own advice, of course, with most of my losses attributable to playing mediocre starting hands that I had no business playing at any price. It sure was fun, though. From now on, I play to straighten up and fly right.

Put in a long session at Harrah’s tonight; I expect it will be my last of the summer trip. I played for about four hours, spending the whole time just above or below my buy-in.

Until, that is, I made one mistake. I played 9Th in first position with four or five limpers and flopped 8JQ for a flopped straight. Problem was that two of the cards on the flop were spades. I checked to try to conceal my hand and called a bet from a tight player in seat five.

Of course the river card was a spade and when I bet he raised me all-in… and I called, like a stupid donkey. He showed the Ace-high flush (of course) and I left, totally broke. Urgh. I know that a bet on the flop would have won it then and there. Yuck.

I set the “best night ever” bar higher tonight, playing 1/2 NL at Harrah’s KC and walking out with over $900. It was a good night; the cards were with me. I flopped a lot of two pair and sets to my pocket pairs.

One story: there were a ton of straddle bets and, since I like to punish straddlers, I raised a lot of hands to $12 pre-flop. In one of them I was in the Small Blind and the button straddled the bet to $4. I found two red Queens in my hand and made what was a pretty standard raise at that point to $12. The player to my left, in the Big Blind who had been straddling all night and playing fairly loose/agressive, announced a raise and tossed in the $12 call. Before he could put out his raise, though, the player to his left pushed all in, not having heard the raise announcement. The Dealer halted action and let everyone know there was still a raise coming from the BB and he made the bet another $165, much more than the all-in which followed him.

So, recap: I raise to $12 with QQ, a player re-raises all-in to $165 and two other players call all-in behind him. Action comes back to me and I have to call $165 to play in a pot of approximately $370. I thought about it for a long time before deciding that, even if I was up against pocket Aces and pocket Kings, the pot was big enough for me to call since I had more than enough chips to handle the raise. So, after much hemming and hawing, I called. The other hands in action were 77 (the big re-raiser!), 66 and A4s. The dealer put the board out and, to make a long story short, my Queens held up for a monster pot.

I left not long thereafter and shot the photo on my way to the Cashier’s cage.

So I did go back, like I said I might in my last post, to play in the same tournament at Harrah’s again. It was the same format, a 30-player multi-table tournament with a $30 buy-in and 20-minute blinds that started at 25/25. We all began with 2000 units.

I played pretty conservatively for the first few orbits since, with blinds at only 25/25, there wasn’t much in the pot to try and take. I went down before I went up, dropping to about $1300 units before winning a pot, but, when I did, it was a fairly large on, in which I made a straight with 82o. In my defense, I was in the big blind and able to limp to see a flop of 79T with three other callers. I bet out 75 units and got only one caller, so there was 250 in the pot on the turn. It was a rag but I bet out again (200) with my open-ended draw and he raised to 200 with what I figured was an over-pair. It was 125 to me with 650 in the pot – an easy call – and I made my straight when 6 came on the river. When he bet 250 and I check-raised up to 800 and he called with the Queens I figured he had and I took down the 2000+ pot.

It sparked some nice conversation about what a maniac I was for playing 82o, which I enjoyed. That came at a good time because I found nothing playable for at least two more orbits. I don’t remember many more specific hands (maybe I should start taking notes at the table again?) but when I was eventually moved as we shrunk to two tables, I was among the top five stacks.

Soon thereafter we stopped for a break and I found I had the second-largest stack at 8400. I got moved back to my original table for two hands until they broke us down to the final table and, with only nine more opponents and a large stack, I felt good about my chances. We all just watched each other fold for about two orbits, during which I stole more than my share of blinds. But, it was the most frustrating part of the tournament for me since I found AA twice in the span of ten hands and couldn’t get any callers either time.

We eventually shrunk to six players. From my button and to the right it was: Me, Army Kid, the Nice Lady, the Hillbilly, the Fat Guy and the Whiner. Nice Lady was the first to go with an all-in desperation move in the BB with rags. The Hillbilly knocked her out with two big cards and then there were five.

He ran over the table for a series of hands, re-raising all of my pre-flop 2.5x raises, which I kept folding, until I looked down and found a beautiful black pair of Kings. I made my standard pre-flop raise and, as he had been doing, he re-raised all-in and I insta-called. He had something like KTo and my pair held up to almost double-up my stack. I became the far-and-away chip leader.

Unfortunately, everyone else in the table dug into their foxholes. You see, the Tournament pays the top four players, which we were, but nobody wants to drop out in the fourth spot. There was some discussion of chopping the prize money four ways but no consensus, so we kept playing.

Army Guy was the next to go, when his two big cards ran into the Whiners AA and then there were three. I lost a big chunk to the same guy’s AK just a few hands later, crippling me and eventually pushed all-in from the button with 52 of diamonds, not my best holding. He won and I checked out in third, winning $125, or $95 profit over my buy-in. That happened at just about 3 am, four hours after we started, which isn’t a great hourly wage but, considering the fun I had, is a satisfying night.

The only tournaments I’ve won in a long-time have been the Turbo SNGs at the Hard Rock, so it was fun to cash in a larger one. I think that, all-in-all, the cash tables are more profitable, but the sure-fire loss-limit of a MTT is a nice change of pace, too.

I did head out last night, as I said I might in my last post. I went to Harrah’s in KC to play in their 11 pm multi-table tournament. I played well, I think, for as long as things lasted. I made good, smart moves, raising instead of limping, stealing blinds when too many players limped and using my loose table image to profit when I had strong holdings. The tournament started with 2000 units and, when they collapsed the first of the three tables, I had about 6,000.

But, I ran into a rough patch. On a flop of xKh7h, I felt good about my QTh and made a strong raise. I got only one caller and he called my bet on the turn, too. The river gave me the heart flush and I bet out, only to see him raise. The only card in the deck I was afraid of was the Ace of Hearts and I couldn’t fold the second-nuts simply because someone raised at me. (More on my read: he had just luckily doubled up through a woman to my right on a ridiculous suck-out. I figured he was trying to bully me.) So, I called and he showed the A2h.

Two hands later I moved all in with KQo and flopped an open-ended straight draw. The same guy called me with a flopped two-pair and I did not improve. So, how did it go? It went great, until it didn’t.

I am going to try to get back to that same tournament tonight. We’ll see.

It’s been a long, long time since I wrote here… but that’s because it’s been a long, long time since I’ve played. My family is on vacation, far away from any card rooms and I haven’t taken a seat at a table in over two weeks. I don’t believe it’s been that long between hands in over three years!

I’ve been keeping busy of course, playing lots of simulated hands on my MacBook and iPhone in between bouts of taking care of my kids. I’ve also been doing a lot of reading (I should review some poker books one of these days) and working on an exciting new project with a friend of mine that we will be ready to announce as soon as we iron out a few more details.

I’ll be retuning to civilization late tonight, so I expect that I will find a chance to play again pretty soon (like, tomorrow night!). In the meantime, I’m tanned, rested and I’ve probably earned thirty cents in interest on the old bankroll.

Headed out last night with the goal of winning my buy-in to the midnight MTT hosted at the Hard Rock each Wed and Thurs night. I sat down at a 1/2 table and did exactly that. I ran my buy-in up to about 2.5x and cashed out just in time to join the tourney.

In the first hand I played, I raised to 2.5x the BB with the 93 of clubs just to see what the table was like. I got two callers and the flop came 383! I checked, as did the other two. The turn was a rag and I checked again. The next player bet and the last guy folded. I pretended to think for a while and then raised all-in. He called and, when I showed my set of threes, he turned over A3. Gulp.

I was left with 125 chips and proceeded to play all-in and win the next three pots, running my stack up to about 1,800. Of course, a short while later, in the BB, I got a real hand and lost to a suckout… but it was fun.

So, why “dumbdumbdumb”? Because I then headed back downstairs and lost my original buy-in at another 1/2 table instead of going home a winner. I still finished up for the night – even after the tournament buy-in – but nowhere near as big a winner as I could have been.

Consolation: as I was leaving, Andy Dick walked in and I got to say hello. Nice guy… but very short.

I made an appearance at the Hard Rock last night.

It was raining and busy, so I had to wait for a table, but I finally got a seat at a 1/2 NL table and, in an hour or so, ran my $100 buy-in up to just over $300. Things were going well but then a number of players left and they broke our table down and sent the survivors around to other tables.

That’s when I should have left.

When I got to my new table, I put all but my original $100 onto the felt and continued to play. I was doing well, making some hands and stealing pots when I didn’t… but then a new, very aggressive player sat down. He was the kind of player who regularly raised $25 pre-flop into a pot of $8 or so and the tenor of play at the table loosened up quickly. Of course, he was remarkably lucky, too: he raised once with 85o and caught running fives to make a full house. Another hand saw his 910s beat my QQ when he made a backdoor flush.

Before I knew it, he had most of the chips and I was all-in with a short stack and KQs. I (of course) made two pair only to lose to his ridonkeylous straight draw and I got up to go home, thankful that I had put that $100 into my pocket where it was safe.

I left with what I came in with… that’s something, right?