One Small Step For Man, One Giant Leap For YIPES

Small entry to the blog, big milestone to report: I cracked the $100 barrier in the experiment today. In 3.5 months of play, I've increased my initial $5 buy-in on PokerStars by a factor of twenty. Woo hoo! This feels like a real achievement. The trick is being careful not to let it go to my head. As I've demonstrated so aptly in the past, I'm highly susceptible to Success Syndrome in situations like this. I don't know how many times that I have demolished the gains of a good run of cards by loosening up my game too much and turning into a chaser. I have to really work at not letting that happen here in YIPES.

As for today's profit, I started out by actually posting a $3.40 loss in a SnG. Took me all of ten minutes, too, and it was a DUMB mistake on my part. Short story is I got into a flop cheap with JTo multi-way on the button, flopped top two pair, but completely went blind to the fact that the board had three-flushed. Part of the problem was that the two (2!) guys holding made flushes in their hands checked to me on the button. I of course bet out and then got smooth-called. No more flush cards came on the turn and river, so I kept betting. Got check-raised on the river and made the stupid call. Ughghghly.

The flipside of the coin, however, was when I then jumped into a couple of $.25/.50 limit games. First thirty minutes of play I hit nothing and was down about $6 total from blinds and a few small pairs that didn't set up. But then I picked up AKs, flopped the nut flush, and did the exact same thing to my opp (holding QQ) that happened to me in the SnG. Raked in a $12 pot on that one hand alone. A little while later, I picked up 66 and hit a flop of JT6. The J and T scared me a little, especially when a 9 and 8 hit on the river, but by then I was deeply pot committed and, fortunately, my set held up.

One hundred bucks may not sound like much, but to this YIPES experimenter, it feels like a pretty big deal.

All-in for now…
-Bug