How donks survive

Well, last night was another example of when bad moves work out.

It started off normal, here are my days goals:
1. Get stats on HUD like 3 bet, fold 3 bet, cbet, fold cbet,
2. Get more involved in thinking situations through. Is a bluff for big profit, or just something to do?
3. Work on maximising value

I was feeling pretty good, a little tired.

I started up a $2 HU SNG to fix up my HUD, which worked great. It's good to see a few more stats, and actually use them. As an aside, I find myself using stats much more often, although playing 1 table, I'm reading players much better without the stats anyway.

Point 2 is a good one. I play "solid" and end up bluffing half my chips. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, but I often don't thoroughly think it through, although I'll admit I'm getting much better at this.

I didn't focus much on 3, it really is about getting a hand when someone else has a slightly worse hand in HU. I can let people bluff off a few chips, but it doesn't happen too much at the $11 level.

Anyway, had an epic starter. Blinds ended up 150/300 and at one point there we were both still even :) I just needed to have the best hand hold up in a couple of places, but actually sucked out badly to win it, in the most rediculous hand ever (well almost). Blinds where so high I just had to shove Q8o, and he insta calls with AA. Flop is Q84r, lol, gg. But wait, Q turn. He still has 2 outs, but can no longer pair the board (with a lower card) to win. River is another Queen, for quads versus his full house, nice. This was the highlight unfortunately, and I tilted a few games later. Mostly because of a couple of suckouts and coolers, then the final straw was someone calling his stack off with bottom pair against my big combo draw (which included 2 overs in the end) and him holding on. For some reason this tilted me. I spewed off another couple of BI's, and shut down the software and instead fired up a drink. And then fired up Pokerstars. Now stars was talking about a server shut down, so no SNG's were running, so I decided a good time to donk at NL10. Another suckout later (he got 2/3rds of his stack in with worse and hit two pair on the river), and I decided to short stack NL25 at $15 buy in. I pretty quickly flopped the nutz and made it to full stack, where I went up and down, playing aggro. I then got an OESD, and hit the nutz on the turn. Rather than raise his double barrell, I called again, hoping he'd put me on the flush draw, and he insta-shoved the river for 1.5x pot, which I called with the nutz, and he showed 2nd pair :)

Up on cash and confidence, I short stacked NL50 now for $30. Again, I played pretty well and ran up a small gain after a cooler brought me down from being way up. I decided these guys were too easy, so bought into a NL100 game for $50. To me this table felt way too easy. Cbets worked incredibly well, and basically even the 23/21 players seemed scared to get into pots without flopping the nutz? I ran up to about $115 without really hitting a hand, then stars lost their server.

I decided to keep the run going on Full Tilt, and get dealt two coolers in the first orbit to be down $60 on NL50. I bought in for $30, but 2nd hand it auto refreshed me to $50 and I get dealt AQs, flopping TPTK, and having to fold when the board comes out QT9J and he shoves. Then lost a few dollars with an overpair when he flopped trips on a 994 board with A9! Tilted again I run up and down, but finish up a little, and go back to stars (it's up again). Sufficed to say I'm getting tipsy by now too.

I also had interuptions at this point when kids woke up. My wife got the shits, mainly because I can't put these monsters back in bed...ever. They just won't take it for some reason. Anyway, NL100 was a success before, so bought in for $50 again. Took a hit when AK missed everything and I got played back at, but then went on a run. I was playing 43/41/5 and just running over the tight weak table. Didn't need to hit anything to get my stack up to $100, then hit a decent pot to make it to $145, when the other $170 stack decided it was time to make a stand, I have KK! I 4 bet, he ships it. I consider that's it's likely AA, but can't fold and he has AK and hits nothing, huge pot! So I'm over $300 on a table, after starting the night with about $60 in the whole account, crazy. A couple of bad players leave, and so do I. I take a break, then come back, only to lose some coolers and go down $80. I then RUN over a table, 48/43/6 with around 17% 3 bets too. Crazy stats, and people just sit back and take it!!! I run up from $50 to $210 without hitting anything at all, and in fact having to fold starting hands like QQ and AK. For some reason nobody can hit anything post flop against me, and I'm winning by the turn 95% of the time with two bets. I quit and go to bed, up to about $340 on Pokerstars, what a crazy night.

Now this is all fun and games, but it's outside of what I should be happy to do, so I'm supposed to be disappointed with what I did, but it's hard to feel that way. It all started with good intentions of course :)