It has been a down-and-up few days. My winnings peaked at ~860 before I inevitably settled into a comfort zone where I started to play too loose spewing chips again. Raising too much with suited connectors and gappers, limping suited crap and connected crap in bad positions, thinking my opponent was always bluffing, disregarding my opponent running through my blocking bets, and bad luck in multiple-out situations, and trying to bluff my opponents off overpairs, have all contributed to a significant dent in my bankroll.

I also moved up to the $15+1 Turbo Sit-N-Gos, played 5 of them, and only finished in the money (2nd place) once. My bankroll dipped to ~590.

And then things changed when I decided to give .25/.50 a go. I thought I would played a more straight forward, controlled game just because of the increase in stake size -- the money actually mean much more to me. Sure enough I played much better. A few donks helped me out as well. The results were encouraging -- at the end of Wednesday my winnings went back up to ~805.

Here are the highlights and lowlights from previous days.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?681495
Completing a double-gutshot straight draw with KJ. The Queen on the river actually gave opponent TPTK and he went ape-shit with it.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?681496
An example of me calling my opponent even though he ran through my blocking bet. Bad bad bad.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?681500
A pair plus flush draw that failed to improve. The post-flop play wasn't too disputable, maybe not against this unbluffable opponent (See 2 hands later). But the more important thing was that I probably didn't need to get involved preflop.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?681501
Completing another double-gutshot straight on the river, this time with QT. My opponent had no idea what I had.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?681506
I flopped a house and my opponent tried to bluff me off it.

My experience with .25/.50 was a pleasant one:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?683894
Set vs. TPTK rivering trips, meaning I hit full house. Huge pot! Maybe I haven't gotten used to the typical .25/.50 big pot sizes yet.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?683897
Turning a gutshot with KJ. Opponent was slow-playing AQ flopping 2-pairs and let me double up through him.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?683898
Flopping a straight. Some opponent offered me his stack with bottom-pair + straight draw.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?683902
I knew this donk would pay me off, and so I chased my straight with bad odds. When I hit it on the river I was successful in making a value raise that he called.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?683907
This was a real blemish in my session. The "He must be bluffing" syndrome reared its ugly head.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?683911
I again called some opponent on the flop purely out of disbelief. Fortunately I caught more outs that I needed to, and I milked some money off my opponent's top pair.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?683925
Laying down QQ preflop. Certainly an excellent fold at the time. We shouldn't be result-oriented should we?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?683939
The guy must have put me on an overpair like 99. Fortunately he checked the turn. Had he pushed there I'm not sure if I could get away from my trip 5s.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?683941
Opponent has not been out of line at all, and hence my eyes totally opened up when he massively pushed after I raised with AA. The Queen on the turn was a bit scary but the river let me firmly believe that I was going to win. Biggest pot ever for me (online).