The Heat Goes On

My last 8 playing days I have been winning at a nearly unimaginable clip. When I walked into Commerce on 8/8/2010 I was a husk of a poker player. My bankroll had been reduced to smoldering ruins, my confidence was shot, and I was extremely close to giving up. As I left Hawaiian Gardens today, I couldn't remember a better run. Upon checking my spreadsheet I wasn't even surprised to see the numbers; just a shade under $8000 of profits in 8 playing days, or 2/3rds of a "valid 300 big bet bankroll" in basically a week. I have committed all manner of heinous atrocities to secure these wins, and I'll relate a few of the choice hands that I can remember below:

I defend my blind with KQ and flop KT5. We go five bets before I get the picture, and eventually I make broadway to crack his AK.

I open JJ, someone cold calls, and Al (a regular who's honestly not that bad) 3 bets me. Someone takes three to the face so I cap it (I'm probably behind Al, but with two fish coming along how bad can it be?) and we see the flop 4 ways. Q74 I bet, the first cold caller calls and Al calls (the guy who took 3 to the face preflop on the button folds). Turn is a blank and the cold caller calls and Al promptly makes a speech....and folds KK face up. The table is beside it self. I bet the river board pair and get looked up by 88 and Al turns blue.

I raise AJ and take a flop seven ways. That's seven. The board runs out J93ss-4c-3d, 5 people call the flop, 3 more the turn, and 2 the river, and MHIG. Seriously, this happened.

Every time I've needed to catch up, I have. Today I 3-bet from the button with AQo and took a flop 4 ways of 432r. Such a flop presents interesting dynamics, since it's a moral certainly nobody with an ace is going to fold before the river is dealt. In short, if you have king high you know you need to fire three shots to bluff out the best hand, but if you have, say, AQ, you can probably extract a little more value than usual. Anyway I value bet the flop and two of them call, then the turn is an 8 and I value bet again and only one calls. River? Queen, no problem. I bet again and he shakes his head in disgust after he calls (meaning that I was in fact behind because there was no way this guy was calling with ace high). Oh and the sets. There has been no end to the sets. Big sets, little sets, heads up, five way, pretty much every type of set you possibly could flop, I have flopped.

It's been really fantastic actually, to run like the wind and remember why I've been doing this as long as I have. It's also comforting to realize that such a drastic heater (200 bets in 53 hours) indicates that the reverse (something like -150 bets in 50 hours) has to happen from time to time (which as everyone here is aware, has been the case for me). I'd like to credit my new-found resolve to concentration, focus, and study, but to be honest it's mostly just been running hot. Here's hoping I can keep it up the rest of the week before I go on the now bi-annual (that means every two years, right?) water skiing trip.