Well, it's been a while coming, but I finally hit a rough patch, nay, a fscking wall... Started a little before that fscking Rockets vs Rockets Flush Fiasco, and 7 buy-ins down the hole later, I say merry fscking xmas to me! Thanks, Poker Gods...

What's worse is I don't even know whether NL50 broke me, or if it was all variance... Or, more realistically, a wicked combo of both, combined with me going donkey (that combo sounds O too familiar)... And I know 7 BIs might not be that much, but it got the best of me, and is forcing me to step down to NL20 4 fscking days before the end of the year!!! Irony, God, Faith, Poker, what have you, have a very lousy fscking sense of humor in my book... Maybe it's Karma punishing me for giving my 10 year old nephew a poker chip sets for Christmas?!?!? lol

Anyway, don't really know what to do next... Day off? Prolly the best idea right now... Stepping down to NL20 is definitely the best, safest and wisest play here, I think, although it will mean forfeiting a lot of the Asia bonus... Next best thing would be to shortstack my way back to a decent NL50 roll while continuing to grind said bonus, but, I don't know, shortstacking, really?!?!? Don't we hate those nitty, check-raising mofos?!?!? Dunno... Guess I have to let this one stirr for a bit :S... Hence this post ;). I think I've said it before, but I'll say it again: that kinda spot really does feel like a heartbreak, seriously... It takes all the place in my head, even though there's still a voice in there yelling how ridiculous it is to let myself feel that crushed by such a trivial matter compared to how fortunate I actually am of being young (relatively), healthy (relatively), independant (relatively), int... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I still just wanna pounce drinks until I don't feel anything anymore... Hehe, there goes my fondness for pathos again... Alas, it is only barely noon here, so that's out of the question... for now... lol.

On the other hand, Season's Greetings to all!!!! Don't let donkeys and suckouts ruin your holidays - working pretty hard on that myself ;)!

Variance is just another word for "God either doesn't exist or doesn't give a $h1t"...

iPoker No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (9 handed) - iPoker Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($79.96)
Hero (SB) ($77.43)
BB ($62.10)
UTG ($9.25)
UTG+1 ($49.25)
MP1 ($9.50)
MP2 ($101.95)
MP3 ($10)
CO ($47.23)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A♠ A♣
5 folds, CO raises to $1, 1 fold, Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, CO raises to $10, Hero raises to $77.43 (All-In), CO calls $37.23 (All-In)

Flop: ($94.96) 9♦ Q♦ 6♠ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: ($94.96) 4♦ (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($94.96) 5♦ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $94.96 | Rake: $3

Results:
Hero mucked A♠ A♣ (one pair, Aces).
CO had A♥ A♦ (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: CO won $91.96

---

This has to be the worse bad beat with the money going in pre-flop one can take... Mine anyway... Why o why couldn't I be on the right side of that freaky freak statistical event, damn you, Poker Gods?!?!?!?

equity	win	tie
50%	2.17%	47.83%
50%	2.17%	47.83%

Considering another fscking bad-beat type twist of faith that happened while my pal Yves (real name, I kid you not ;)) and I were watching the Habs game and playing a NLHE Freezout Heads-up on Saturday night. I got dealt pocket rockets, but didn't even have time to look at'em before Yves folded his small blind, to which I shrugged and went "awwwight", peeling my cards out of habit/curiosity only to see those 2 beautiful aces staring me right back in the eye. Then came what I regret the most in like ages... He showed some crap like 92off, so I went "Let's run it, you'll hit 2 pairs, you lousy luckbox!" (he is one luckbox fella :P). And we did. What did I flop? That's right, quads Aces... Quad-fscking-Aces.In.A.Heads-up-Fscking-Match... I knew right there that I'd been in the middle of a variance shit storm since a week, and it was not gonna be over this weekend anyway...

I had to take a pic of that... to attest of it... I swear on my mother's soul it is NOT A RIGGED PIC!!!! Yves can testify if need be... rofl!



So here's a joke about it all, just to make sure I can smile again... lol.

Picking up some pace in clearing this AsiaPoker bonus thingy, I feel the need to post a quick update.

Logged almost 13k hands at NL50 now. And while I cannot say I really feel settled in (feels more like a roller-coaster ride, to be perfectly honest), I do start to feel comfortable with the whole game. So far so good, then.

Bonus-wise, I have now cleared a whooping 7 out 60 ten-dollar payouts, but must admit I kinda still entertain the notion that I might, in the end, pull it out. Remember, the deadline is February 15th!! Still, the gambler in me kinda knows that it will probably come down to what Life has in store for me the next few months... Nerf variance, I guess... lol. Anyway, I'll give it all I got, and we'll see :).

On a somewhat sadder note (yeah, I have a tendency towards pathos, sue me! lol), AsiaPoker's latest update modified the way the selected table is displayed, which basically screws up my whole EyePoker table selection/datamining tool (forum post here)... Of course, I've found a workaround, but it does limit what can only be referred to as table-hopping, which I'll confess doing when tables break down (who doesn't? lol), but hey, I'll take it... Nevertheless, what's actually bugging me the most is the very simple realization that I have become accustomed, addicted perhaps, to my poker tools... I mean, for those using PokerTracker or any other tracking software, could you imagine playing without them??? Sure you can, be only because you love the game so much, right? Hence, we grow dependant of these tools, somehow, and miss them dearly... Definitely something to bare in mind, I would say... maybe by, I don't know, play without them once in a while...

A final sidenote: Nic found a poker webcomic strip which I am still slowly reading, peeling a couple of strips a day, mastering the urge to just go right through them all so I can have something to put a smile on my face in case I run into a couple bad beats/donkey moves... lol. Here's the link, if you don't know about it already; some of them are pretty funny :). Can't help myself: I am now pot-committed to that strip!!!! ROFL!

Had a very satisfying, hard worked, hard fought grinding weekend, and reached a 100,000 hands since I track my results in the process. Woohoo :P! Although it pales in comparison to the daunting task that lays ahead of me; clearing that Asia Poker bonus might not be that easy after all, lol. Played a little over 7k hands and got 3,844 Dragon Points, needing 60k, which means at this rate, I will definitely have to play about 110k hands before February 15th!!! Oh well, I'll do my best, and try not to lose every last shreds of my already iffy social life, lol.

Ok, there's no 2 ways about it: November was a definite, rock-solid, epic FAIL. I'll say it again: EPIC.FAIL.

3, 381 hands played is by no means relevant. And I don't really know what happened, except what I said in my latest post.

Although, on the bright side, November marked my first shot at NL50, which I'm currently still riding. Hopefully, I'll stick around, especially since I laboriously started grinding at The Asia Poker First Deposit Bonus...

To make things right, the graphs, even though a pretty irrelevant sample :(.

November 2008 - BB Won
November 2008 - Showdown