The grind

My winrate seems to be declining. I'd do the calculations to find out whether such a hypothesis is true, but I don't know how to. (I do really. Otherwise I'd be stupid.)
Anyway, the last session was just a grind really. It started off badly, as is happening a lot these days.
Well, to be fair, it started off with me being dealt aces the very first hand and being called all the way by Q4 who flopped 2nd pair. However, I was also dealt aces in the 4th hand and I was too stubborn to fold them when the flop was 3 diamonds. I had the ace of diamonds in my hand, and the turn was an ace so I wouldn't say it was terrible. But he showed K♦9♦.
After that I was just faced by idiots playing any two cards and sucking out. This was especially true when I was dealt good hands. I was dealt a lot of premiums this session, but lost with most, such as when I had queens and my opponent played T7o to the river with nothing but a gutshot, which he obviously made, otherwise I wouldn't be complaining about it.
After a while though, a lot of the any2donks seemed to leave at the same time and I began to grind it back up.
I finished up $0.46 after 175 hands (6.57 BB/100 hands).

The most important session so far (and then another one)

For reasons that will soon become apparent, I didn't write the following session up immediately. Hence, I can't really remember any details and I can only say that it was about 200 hands and it happened on Sunday.
I started by running badly for the first real time. Consequently, I tilted. And then my computer crashed. This may or may not have been a good thing. I was down $2.58. This put me on a roll equivalent to halfway through my 6th session. It was bad. Very bad. So I until now, I've not played.
Fortunately, I have now played and I'm up $0.99 from a fairly uneventful 88 hands.

Quite a short downswing

I thought I'd play again. So I did.
I had a very good start, which included me turning a 6 high straight and getting raised by aces.
There was one hand where another player flopped a straight, with me drawing to a potentially inferior one, and then being runner-runner counterfeited by myself. To be fair, I did make the call on the river. I knew he had been counterfeited and we split it. But other than this not much else happened in the 73 hands.
I finished up $0.58 up.
So that downswing I was afraid of ended up being quite a short one.

The beginning

I felt like a long session today. I watched Lucky You (probably the worst poker film every produced) yesterday and then went off and played a live tournament out of the blue. I didn't win but it's got me in the mood.
Unfortunately, I had a bad start. I wasn't on form and I wasn't running as well as I have been. I was down to about half my BI on each table. I then managed to grind it back up to the BI on two, but was shortly busted on the other. I rebought to a new table.
There was a big pot ($0.75) where I was dealt kings and they held up on the wettest board against 2 players. Things were beginning to look up. But despite flopping the set of 5s thrice on the same table, I couldn't turn a profit.
I finished 213 hands with my first loss of $0.34. Not terrible but hopefully it's a one off and not the beginning of a downswing.

Graphical Productions

I think it's really important to take your results from poker and put them into graphical form. So, as I've now done 10 sessions, I went and did just this. 

I use OpenOffice. Microsoft Office is -EV in my opinion. 

For this, I used OpenOffice Calc.

First of all, I had to put all my results in a table. What I did was I had Calc open on one screen, and ICOAG on the other. This meant I could easily scroll through the blog whilst adding data. 

This is what the table looked like.

As you can see, I didn't put a date for the 2nd and 3rd entries because they were the same as the first one. I also needed two columns each for Hands and Profit because it was necessary to have cumulative values for each.

It's also worth noting the bottom cumulative values - ie. the totals. I've played 1192 hands and won $6.72, which is equivalent to 168.25 big bets, giving me an average of 14.11 BB/100 hands. If you want to know how I got those values, I simply divided 673 by 4 for the total big bets, and then divided this by 1192 and multiplied by 100 for the BB/100 hands.

So now I could make the graph.

Here it is.

And just so you know, I'm taking the piss.

University

I've finally moved into a permanent residence for my time at Birmingham University. This meant I could finally play again.
I thought I'd make it a quick one as I've still got to unpack the rest of my stuff. Fortunately, the newly sped up Fast tables meant that I could play 51 hands in about 10 minutes over the usual 3 tables of 6-max.
It started fairly typically - a gradual climb on two tables and a little loss on the other. That seems to be the general pattern.
Then suddenly, I was dealt AK and KK simultaneously. With AK, it was 3-bet to me; I 4-bet. The flop was ace high with 4 and 5 of spades. You're right. I don't have spades.
Nevertheless, I bet it and was called and then raised. I re-raised, they both called. Bet out on the turn and was just called by both. And then daringly on the river which completed the flush draw. They both called and, as I expected, my top pair top kicker was good.
On the KK table, the flop came KKx. Not a bad flop for kings. I checked from early position and it was checked round. I checked again on the flop and this time someone bet out and I check-raised them. However, I couldn't get any more value on the river and they folded.
This was enough for me so I cashed out $0.58 up. Hopefully nothing's going on in my flat. I can't hear anything because I have my earphones in.
Not anymore. I can't hear much though. Just the odd bump.

An irritating session

At least 4 different players were adopting the raise every hand strategy. I'm sure the strategy has its merits but really it's just mental retardation for dummies. Thanks to this, I was down about $1.20 at one point.
However, after 123 hands, I realised I was actually up $0.64, mainly thanks to fourflushes and backdoor straights. I can't complain. I'm still running hot.

Sorry Mike

I'd like to apologise to Mike Caro.
I could justly be accused of manufacturing a winning streak now. I played a 196 hand session and I'm up $0.10. I didn't do it on purpose though.
It was pretty miserable. I was down on each table for a while. They kept trying to bluff/calling down with aces and then rivering overpairs and fourflushes and the sort. (I said I was looking forward to moaning about bad beats.) There was one particular hand worth mentioning. I accidentally called the small-blind's raise from the big blind with J8o due to a misclick, and this led to the limper calling too. Then I flopped an open-ender on a board of
3c Td 9c
SB c-bet, I called and then the limper raised. SB and I called. Turn was
Ad
SB bet out again, I should have folded here. I don't believe I had the odds. But I called. And once again the flop raiser raised and we both called. Then I rivered the straight with
Qd
I sneakily flat-raised, to cap it. And then I found out SB had 9c7c. To be fair, I made my hand on the river and he had a pair before that.
However, I did make a few tricky plays and was able to stay alive on the other two tables, such as check-calling top pair on the flop, then check-raising the turn after making top two.
I also made a few hero calls, which were really just steam-calls that turned out to be good because they were bluffing.
I ended the session fairly soon after being dealt aces. I turned the set and it was at least 3 bets on each street, 3-way. That hand was the reason I finished the session in profit. So once again, sorry Mike Caro.

My return

I've just come back from a holiday in Magaluf and played my first session. Well, I came back yesterday morning but I was far to tired to grind, so I just railed Ted and Squid in the 2-7 WCOOP. I fell asleep at about 9:30, and woke up at 6 to find myself $21.50 down, rather than $500 odd up, which was unfortunate. But I decided my stake for that would be outside my Stars roll, so don't worry. I still exist.
Coincidentally, I also bet my roll against Squid's in Magaluf on whether Ellen DeGeneres starred in Jeopardy! at Disney. I was confusing Jeopdary! with Blockbusters, so that was $7.10 down the drain, but I settled that outside my roll too.
Anyway, the holiday gave me plenty of time to read Small Stakes Hold'em by Sklansky, Malmuth and Miller, which was beneficial. It also gave me plenty of opportunities to get completely off my face.
Just now, I thought it was time to play. So I did.
First hand, I was dealt AQ, UTG+1 and called UTG's raise, and so did BB. Flop came AQT. I was fairly sure neither of them had aces, queens or 10s, so I pretty much had the nuts. It was capped on the flop and then the turn and river were another 2 bets. That first hand was the biggest pot of the session for $0.74.
Other highlights included flopping jacks up with J9 - the preflop nuts, and rivering a straight flush with A8. It was the wettest of boards, and I was called for one bet on the river by some guy hoping his pair of 10s was good.
I misplayed T9, when the flop came T9T. Well, I raised the SB's flop bet, it folded round and I could make no more money than his single call.
Nevertheless, I finished the session up $0.84 after 109 hands. A decent result on my return. Need to start playing more now though.