Trouble was, with all the BIG hands he was hitting all sorts of crap.

All the way to final hand – 2nd game today where my Sklansky bucks was even more than the real $$$’s I could have won.

hmm, giving up now as I’m spazzing. I’ve won 9-6, and I’m down -$6? That seems pretty bad – FT has worse rake, yet I don’t remember ever being 57% ITM and still down in winnings there…

So, a day of absolutely nothing! Obvious there was some pokerage, although getting a lie-in was a godsend too (didn’t manage to sleep at the w/e, and yesterday was a horrendous 5:45am start!).

Full Tilt had no SNGs this morning, something to do with an update I think. 2p2 said it would be over at 7am, but I’ve no idea what timezone that was, so just switched to Pokerstars.

As usual at PS (or at least so far today), I’ve run under EV. Also it’s been really slow going – there’s been a bunch of Russians who must be playing on dial-up since they take an age for each click, which with the slow blind structure of PS means you can actually feel yourself ageing during a match.

Most of that under EV stuff has been fairly bad beats too (not the usual 33 vs AQ type flip), such as AQ vs QT which hits JK9, AQ vs 92s running to a flush, and a few 2pair shoves where the villains TP finds a paired board (not the one that fills my boat obv). Actually it’s been a bit of a struggle, with at least one hand like this in each match, but I’m really proud of my non-tiltage, plus how I’ve stayed in the game to win most of them. I reckon I’m playing really strongly today

At least I’m not -ve $$$ yet, but there’s still the rest of the day to go. Just have to keep in mind this years resolution of VOLUME!

I’ve no idea what timezone that is, or even who my sources are…

Bank holiday monday, nothing else to do and plenty of time, so figured I’d stick a bit of cash onto Pokerstars and play their HU knockout MTTs (where it’s $10 buy-in, then you win $5 for each player you knockout). I thought I’d keep signing up for them throughout the day while taking down a few regular husngs in the quiet spots.

Didn’t even get that far.

I registered for the first one and opened a regular husng while waiting. In the opening hands I tried a few cbets to see where I stood – he called all of them and we went to a cheap showdown where he had bottom pair each time.

I then tried a few delayed cbets and some check-raises. Every time I got called, and somehow he had a piece of the board. I figured I couldn’t put him down as a calling station as he had hit each time, even though he was calling really light.

I finally hit a flop, albeit OOP. I lead out each street with him calling me down. He paired his King on the river and took that pot.

I was starting to feel a bit incredulous, plus a bit short of chips. There were a ton of hands like this;

At least he couldn’t get value out of monsters, but I was running out of ideas. I had won a pot only twice out of 80 or so hands (I 3bet pre and missed on the dryest board ever – had to lead out and he folded. The other hand was a flopped straight!).

Finally I was desperate with 500 chips – my KQ hit top pair on 7KTr, I raised and he shoved to show AQ. A Jack landed on the river and game over.

Amazing. But what can you do? The MTT started and I tried to shrug it off.

First game was a Russian maniac. Every pot had a stupid reraise somewhere (several 4bets at times). Finally it came down to my TT vs his AJ, and he hit. So that was that – next MTT in an hour.

So I went back to regular games while waiting. And again all the players were hitting any part of the board and calling down. Over and over again.

Tilted beyond comprehension, I withdrew the remaining cash from PS and gave up. It was only mid-day, ruined utterly

I don’t believe poker is rigged at all, but it’s so easy to see why so many people do. At the microstakes if anyone with the smallest amount of money can play, then why not be giant calling stations – it’s all about the gamble! When their J2 hits a KQ2 board for the win, then whoohoo!

Maybe if I called every street a bit more I could win too…

Obviously the sites that offer rakeback will have higher Rake, but for nanostakes (NL10 and less) even with Rakeback Full Tilt was really bad compared to Pokerstars or Party Poker. Guess I’ve just moved my roll to the wrong site.

I suspect if I move up to NL50 I might lose more than just rake though…

The wire transfer will take a couple of days, but the amount’s not such a big deal that I can’t just take it out of my current account. However when I opened up FT it wasn’t totally empty – a lonely $10 sat there (looks like my affiliate has switched from monthly Rakeback to weekly).

So I thought I’d have a go to see if I could build that $10 a little and just wait for the wire transfer to clear (unless I lose it in the next hour or so). Game chosen: $2 husngs.

So far lost only two, both of which were miracle 5% hits by the villains. $2 seems massively different from any other husngs – everyone calls everything!

One opponent decided to help me out;

Board was QK2QK, he’d checked turn & river so I put out a little thin value bet on the river with my Ace – he calls with his J and says ‘Obvious’. He then went on to call my flop cbets with hands that had no way of improving (you’re bluffing so I call?), and then after this hand where I thought it was worth a bluff on the river (despite having said what huge stations these guys are);

and now I’m bothered that I get dumb. Don’t raise a check as it’s buying the pot which is bad? No idea…