Back on a Winning Track

I haven't played a lot of poker since returning from Indiana, I've had to sit and rebuild my roll a bit. I went to Ken Walker's house last week for his $60 tournament. I was down most of the game (kept losing to river cards), and finally busted when I put a hellacious bluff on Yosh for his whole stack and he couldn't let pocket 9's go on a board of 5-7-3 all clubs. I sat down at the cash game and ran my $150 up to about $225 when I got into a trainwreck with Matt G. and Grayday. I get dealt K7d in the small blind. Matt makes it $4 to go. I call, Grayday calls. Flop is J-4-3 with two diamonds. I check, Grayday checks, Matt bets $10. I call, Grayday calls. Turn 5h. Grayday leads out for $30. Matt G. shoves all-in $108. Grayday only has $49 behind and looks eager to put it in. I tank for a minute and call with my gutshot and flush draw. River 6s giving me straight. Matt turns over a set of 5's and Grayday had jacks with a heart flush draw and missed. Ship it! After that hand I played a lot of big pot poker. When I had a hand I hammered the pots, and people were folding to me all night. I laid an awesome river bluff on Eddie J for a good $100 pot with my pair of 2's (Q kicker, of course). I finally made it to an even $500 up and cashed out. I needed to book a win and this was enough for me to quit on.

I didn't play live again until last night. I hit Dave's for the deepstack tournament. My only two cashes at Dave's tournaments this year are in deepstacks, so I was feeling good about it. I even paid the $2 for the POY. I was doomed from the start. I got put at a table of calling stations who couldn't let hands go. Despite my efforts, people simply check-called all the way down. I made a huge misread on Pyxis for most of my stack (she flopped top set and I put her on missing the flop). I finally busted when I shoved with A9s and got called by AJ. After that debacle I bought into the cash game. I bought $100 and blinded off about half of that. I added on $80 more and plodded along. I finally got on track when I picked off Jewish Andy in a pot. He raised preflop to $4 and I called on the button with A9. The flop came 10-8-10 with 2 hearts. Andy c-bets $6 and I raise to $16. I am certain he doesn't have a 10, but he calls the raise. Turn is the Ah. Andy bets out $15. I now have Aces with a 9h flush draw. I call. River is a 9, Andy bets half my remaining stack ($28). I flat call and he says "I have a pair". I turn over A9 and scoop it. He said he had Q's but he didn't show it. After that I went on my run, scooping a bunch of decent sized pots. Grayday was blowing through chips, and I made sure to get my share of them. He was being so aggressive that El Diabl0 and I called him down on his river bets three separate times with only Ace high and won all three pots. He started steaming bad and lost a ton of chips trying to push us around. I cashed out +$400 at 3AM, he was still playing and the tournament was still going. Looks like my horrific streak may be ending, time to rebuild. Maybe Vegas in June after all?