Poker is a funny game. You can play it for high hand, low hand, or high/low. You’ll also run into many emotional highs and lows over the course of long hours at the tables.

On Saturday I continued playing at Empire to clear my bonus. Four tables of 6-max $25 No-Limit was once again the game of choice. Early on I was stuck about $100, but I clawed my way back and was up $100 just before I was about to clear the bonus. This is where I usually fall apart with loose calls. It happened once again and I lost the profit I had worked so hard to earn over the course of 3 hours of play. I still finished ahead for the session, but it was disappointing. I cashed out $100 ahead for the bonus and somewhere over $200 ahead for play at the tables. Not bad for 6 hours of play, but it should have been so much better.

Sunday morning I made a deposit at Ultimate Bet in order to rack up some more bonus dollars. It was a $200 bonus this time which put my bonus total at UB well over $900. During each of the previous bonus deposit periods I’ve played a SNG or a few quick minutes and then made a withdrawl. Each time, this has triggered the warning flags with UB and I’ve received an email. I responded nicely and told them I had in fact played with the funds and then made my withdrawl, which I had been told I could do. After that they would always send me my funds. I decided not to risk it again, so I jumped on a few tables. On a full table of $1/2 limit I cashed out over $100 ahead. But on the two 6-max tables that I played ($1/2 and $3/6) I lost a combined $250.

I don’t know why, but I’ve never been able to beat the 6-max games at UB…and I should be able to. The players are bad. They seem to hit gutshot straights on me more often than I can hit a flush draw though. I’m not exagerating either. A few months I lost a good portion of my bankroll playing these tables, so I left for greener pastures. I know I can beat these games because I’ve had good success playing short-handed tables at other sites. I’m just getting my ass handed to me by UB variance. I’m going to stick to some of the lower limit 6-max games and work my way up as I improve my confidence and prove to myself that I can win at these games, because they appear to be gold mines.

I also played in the $100,000 guaranteed that Bodog runs every Sunday at 2. Only 700-some joined, so there was over $20,000 added to the prize pool to hit the guarantee. I was above the average chipstack for the first hour and a half. Then my cards went dead and the blinds kept increasing. With the blinds at 100-200 and about 2300 in chips I found KK 2 seats off the button. There was a minimum raise in front of me, so I decided to bump it up to 1000. Looking back I should have pushed since I was pretty much pot committing myself anyways. The original raiser had me just barely covered in chips and he called. The flop brought an ace and a cringed. It was checked to me. Now what? I don’t think I had much of a choice but to push at this point. I did, the player called, and he flipped over A4 for two pair. I caught a flush draw on the turn, but the river didn’t bring any help and I was out in 174th place. The top 63 paid. I should have pushed pre-flop damnit!