I hadn’t played poker since the 28th and my sister is coming to visit for a few days so I figured tonight was my best chance to play some poker. I’m glad I played. After a few hours of play at the Party Poker .50/1 tables I got in 300 hands and lost 8.5 BB. It was the greatest poker I’ve played in quite some time.

You might be wondering how I can you lose and say I played my best. My VP$IP was less than 12.5% and my W$WSF was less than 17%! That’s just the cards I was getting; not many premium hands and not many flops hit my hand. I only cold called a raise pre-flop once in 300 hands. I had Ac4c and three other players had already cold called the raise so I figured I was getting some good odds if I nailed a flop. If I didn’t catch on the flop, it was an easy fold. Looking back I should have probably even folded that one.

I just wasn’t getting any quality hands or hitting any kind of flops. A week ago I would have been frustrated, giving away bets. Today I was patient. I was aggressive when I hit and my big hands paid off for the most part. There were only two hands where I lost more than 2 BB and one of them was only 2.5 BB. The other hand cost me 5.5 BB, which is about 3 more than I should have. I found AhQh in early position, so I raised it. Everyone folded around to a tight player on the button who re-raised me. I called. The flop came queen high so I bet my top pair top kicker and was raised. I told myself he had rockets or cowboys, but I re-raised and then the pot was capped. I knew I was beat, but I check-called the turn and river anyways. The player showed KhKc for a big surprise. In the future I’d like to be able to fold after the flop raise. I fell in love with my hand even though I called his hand. Bad play.

I reviewed my 10 biggest losing hands (most were in the 1-2 BB range) and I only made that one mistake I just went over. After looking over my 10 biggest winning hands I couldn’t see any place where I could have extracted another bet out of my opponent. I’d say that’s a pretty good day at the tables, even if it was a losing day.

How do I know all of this? Well, when you combine the information gathered by Poker Tracker with the great advice in the Poker Tracker Guide, you have an easy and effective way to review your online poker play. I wish I had this a few months ago when my game went down the shitter.

I know I’m only 300 hands in to my new start, but with the new auto rate rules from the guide book, Poker Tracker has me tagged as a Good Player (Tight Aggressive Solid). That must mean I’m doing something right so far. Let’s hope it continues and the cards improve. If so, my bankroll will quickly build back up and I’ll be sitting at the $1/2 tables again in no time.