Hi Lo So Beatable

Well, had to take a week off from playing due to work. I;m fortunate in that my job affords me lots of time off to pursue poker. I generally only have to work 10-11 days a month.

I played for the first time in aweek at my favourite West end club -- Wed is high/low night, and this is a very beatable game. I closed a few holes in my game that I had been noticing in past weeks and played a very good session. Only once during the night did I make a huge preflop blunder -- pots were getting capped 6 ways in a forced-betting O8 round and I originally called a single raise out of the SB with QQ23. Needless to say I called a capped flop and had to fold on the flop of K23. Other than that I played a solid game. I got outplayed in one hand of stud8 forced betting with a spit, but was happy with my fold after I thought about the hand for a bit. I folded aces up (AAJJ) on 5th street when facing a bet (low hand) and a raise from the strongest player in the game representing trip Js (J was the spit)...I almost reraised as calling was not an option given the only low was yet to act behind me. I had raised the strong player on earlier streets and he had just called, now he was raising into me. I ultimately folded the hand, but thought the raiser may have been making a move. Ultimately, in this game there are better spots to pay a cap on 5th street. Strong player showed down only a pair of Js for high (actually scooping a drawn low).

Great session -- up 6bb/h.**

Another hole in my game that is being smoothed out is playing too long a session when the game is no longer good -- this has been hard for me, but playing more frequently has helped me to drastically decrease losses based on this hole. I don't have to stay for 10hours when I'm not sharp or only the solid players remain, I can just play again tomorrow or the following day.

Generally a good session for me is 5-6 hours, after that I lose a bit of an edge, become afraid to lose what I'm up. Someone on RGP once told me that he locks-up sessions by not allowing himself to get below a certain fixed amount when he's up -- for example if he is up $400 in a 10 20 game after 5 hours, he will leave if he gets down to $300. For myself, this is a good rule as it is emotionally draining giving back alot of chips at the tail end of a session.

Game's going well. Next session will likely be 10 20 at the CNE during the day Saturday.

**note that in a kill game with many kill pots (this game is a kill based on the size of a single pot), I measure a BB as the average of the fill and non kill rounds (ie -- $10 in a 4 8/6 12 game)