Back to 50NL

Yesterday I had my 2nd $1k downswing of the month, which is pretty sickening. Mainly 100NL, I ran like ass the entire time (about $600 under EV) but also started playing very poorly as a result. Retardo call of the year:

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

CO: $124.00
BTN: $123.50

SB: $438.55

BB: $101.00
Hero (UTG): $154.30
MP: $181.45

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is UTG with T A
Hero raises to $4, 3 folds, SB calls $3.50, 1 fold

Flop: ($9.00) 8 2 9 (2 players)
SB bets $9, Hero calls $9

Turn: ($27.00) 4 (2 players)
SB bets $22, Hero calls $22

River: ($71.00) J (2 players)
SB bets $71, Hero calls $71

Final Pot: $213.00

SB shows 4 2 (two pair, Fours and Twos)
Hero mucks T A
SB wins $210.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Villain had been potting 3 streets almost every hand but I'm actually a 2:1 dog vs a random hand on the river so my call is pretty atrocious. Note his turn bet size, I later realised he was making it less than pot only when he actually had a hand (although it was anything from a minbet to 95% pot). He went on to cooler me for a couple more buyins (his set vs my TPWK and his TPTK vs my MP), although I later got a buyin back with 2pr over 2pr. Was pretty tilting to see him pot pot pot 150bbs away at a time to other people while taking the lot off me.

Here's my month so far:

Despite making ridiculous hero calls my redline was still an abomination, so I looked through my stats and found I was playing about 15/12 (same as my FR game, lol wtf) with 23% steal, 60% flop cbet, 40% turn cbet. Surprising how easy it is to let things slip.

Today I read through most of Small Stakes No Limit by Ed Miller, in particular the bits on stealing, cbetting and barreling. If you haven't read this book I really recommend it - it's tailored to online play and some of the advice in there is very solid, if slightly on the spewy side.

I've decided to drop down to 50NL for now, while I rebuild my game. For today's session I brought my stats back up to a much healthier 36% steal, 79% cbet, 54% barrel (which I think is similar to my game from a few months ago). Shame I still ran like crap but I'm much happier with how I played:

It's probably gonna take a while to rebuild at 50NL, and it's annoying to fail at taking a shot when I used to crush 100NL FR, and when I want to move up quickly so I can make some good progress on my $100k goal this year, but I think this is for the best.

- HappyPixel