The ownage continues.

No change (maybe slightly up or down).

The cards on me that is, not me on the game.

After my tirade during the last blog, I decided to really focus on my game. I thought, maybe it's not the cards, maybe it's my attitude that causes me to play bad and blame it on the cards.

The immediate return was pretty good. I cashed in a couple of tables and felt really confident about my game. I could count the number of mistakes on a single hand (a couple of zero plays where I would raise before the flop, a short stack would call, check the flop to me and then reraise my pot bet all in with a typical trap move. I could save money by just betting a third of the pot to get the same result). But these were minor errors and my strategy of tight aggression with good cards and positional plays, something I've not done much of in the past was working very well. I put about $20 on my bankroll. Not much but I was more happy with the game I've been playing. I've actually enjoyed the last couple of days playing poker which is a first in something like six weeks.

Sadly any work on my bankroll has just been completely undone by the cards (yet again) completely) owning me. Because I've been playing tight and aggressive, making raises and bets and reraises I've been having a pretty good idea where I've been in hands. Today the cards have just been pounding me; people coming over the top of me and doing sly min raises on my semi-bluff c/bets. I know I'm behind and I've been folding a hell of lot today when I know I'm beat.

A classic example was having AQ. I raised it on the button with one caller. Flop was Qxx. I put in an aggressive 3/4 bet which is called. Turn is a king and an quick check by the villan. I know he has the best had now and we check down and he shows K7. I've noticed that, with me raising a lot more preflop I'm getting called by trash. Sadly, if they hit their cards and you know they're not going to fold there's not much you can do.

In five games today this pretty much happened so I was forced to fold into short stack mode. Each time I nursed it superbly into the bubble but could never progress from there.

And now, just to rub more salt into the wound, I flopped a straight, managed to get all the money in with two players - one with a flush draw and the other with two pair. Obviously the guy filled up (this scenario has actually happened twice in the last three days). And then, knowing that my raise with AK is going to make some fishy idiot go all in, I get three outered by the lovely A7. I called the situation exactly but my pessimistic prediction was right again, I knew he would hit his out. Maybe I need to start preaching the law of attraction. I'm now on a seven game cashless streak.

In summary I've think I've been playing close to the 'zone', probably making the right decision 90% of the time. Unfortunately that's still not good enough for a player still serving drinks ice cold.