Ummmm...Ouch?

I am running SO badly.

Just as I was about to hit my stride and had even caught a glimpse of moving up to the $20 SNGs, I have hit a mad rush of card-deadedness and vicious suckouts unlike anything I've seen before.

Before I go on, however, I must admit that I was due. So I'm coping well. I had been running ridiculously hot, getting cards, hitting flops, and sucking out. But it doesn't matter how high the highs were, the lows always feel like a vicious blow to the gut.

So I've gone from I think a high of $178 down to $44. And much like normal, this bad run happened when I had dedicated time to play. We were out of the office Thursday afternoon and Friday due to weather. Luckily I've learned my lesson from many times before and this time I didn't make it all worse by playing stupid. Hell, I'd have probably gone broke by now in the past. Once I hit like $65 I switched from $10s to $5s, and I only had one SNG open at a time to allow for optimum focus. But I just couldn't win. Just could not! I am literally uneasy as anything worse than an 80% favorite, and even as 80% and above by no means am I out of the water

The epitome of this whole thing took place in a $5 SNG about 8 hours or so into this variance-filled rampage. I happened to be in pretty good shape in this one, in the rare occurance of finding myself with a hand early and up a few hundred chips. I've got 93o in the big, and after two limpers and a SB complete, I checked my option. The flop comes a fairly pleasing A93 rainbow. SB checks to me, and hoping to get action from an ace, but happy to take down this 240 chip pot early on with my 2 pair (especially the way I'm running), I go ahead and bet the pot. It folds around to the SB, who calls my bet. The turn is another offsuit 4, and this time the SB bets at me. There's that ace. I raise him, and he re-raises me all-in. I really didn't put too much thought into the whole thing here. I suppose I could easily lose to a set or a higher two pair, but I was willing to lose if that was the case. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised, either, the way I was running, but I feel like I'm ahead of the small blind a LOT here. So with 700 chips behind and blinds at 40/80, I go ahead and call his all-in rather quickly. He rolls 52o, and I've got four outs against his made gutshot straight, which, of course, I brick. This dude calls w/52o in the small. Not the worst move in the world with 7 to 1. If he flops a monster, he can get a lot of chips. He flops nothing but a gutshot. Three outs or runners to beat any hand other than a pair of 3s. And he calls a pot-sized bet. The poker gods take over at this point and forsake the shit out of me, and the rest is history. I ended up fizzling out in like 6th or 7th, probably losing when I push my A-rag into a bigger A-rag.

Its been ridiculous. Almost funny. I'm not getting hole cards. When I do, I'm missing the flop. If I get a hand worthy of raising, I do so, and miss the flop and fold. In an effort to make up for a lack of cards, I'll take stabs at pots with position on stealable boards, but I get callers and end up with nothing but an even more depleted stack. If I manage to make it to the bubble in 2nd or 3rd, we start playing "pass the chips", I get no hands, my steals don't work, and the bubble eventually bursts in my face when I push my A-rag or pocket pair into a bigger A-rag, pocket pair, or losing coin flip. Of course they're all losing coin flips, so I could just say "coin flip" and we would have an understanding that I'm not winning it. I'm missing draws and losing chips drawing. My KKs and QQs are no good, my AAs don't get paid. A set? What's a set?? The BB is flopping trips with their rags like its routine. And the list goes on and on. You all know our good friend variance.

Luckily I've made $11 in .05/.10 cash games, so that's a couple more buy-ins to help get me played through this thing. But man is it depressing.

Anyway, I'll keep plugging away. If I get down to $22.50 I'll start playing the $2.25s. I'm not gonna let this thing break me, but its just disappointing to be comfortable at the $10s and on the threshold of moving up, only to get cold-decked for 2 days straight and moving down.

Things seem to have steadied a little bit so with any luck they'll grind back forward. The good news is there's always my rakeback, and I made a record amount (a whopping $13) in February and plenty in the first couple days of March, so hopefully I'll get things turned around and then get a nice little kickback on my way back up.

I'm proud of my sanity and level-headedness, but I just had to vent.

I'm actually slightly thankful that the BloggerPods tourney got cancelled, because the way I've been running I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell at an iPod. But maybe by next week things will be cycled back around in my favor.

Anyway, gotta run. May all your cards be live and your pots be monsters.