Both CR and ER took this week off, so we were four handed. JC and I took that as a sign to be much more aggressive. It seemed to pay off more for me than for him:

    This week  Cumulative  Average
EM    -$4.65     -$10.45   -$0.75
JB    +$1.85      -$6.15   -$0.47
JC    -$1.40     +$17.10   +$1.32
Me    +$4.20      +$0.95   +$0.07

Being more aggressive led to the worst bad beat of the night, when JC flopped two pair in the big blind and I flopped top pair in the small blind:

Me: ATs
JC: Q8o

[AQ8]

I bet, JC raises, I call.

[K]

I check, JC bets, I call.

[J]

I check, JC bets, I raise, JC calls.

I win with the suckout straight.

Given the fact that we were short-handed, and JC’s hyper-aggression, I really didn’t know whether he just had top pair like me, or a better hand. I figured there was a good chance he was trying to steal the pot and decided to call him to the river, which netted me a lot of bets.

Thanks in part to that suckout, and mostly to good cards and aggressive play, I’ve finally inched up into positive territory after four consecutive positive weeks. JC and ER still hold first and second place in both cumulative and average winnings, but I’m pretty happy to be positive after 14 sessions. We’ll see how things are once we get a statistically valid number of records.

Playing four-handed was interesting, and if it weren’t for the fact that we started about 45 minutes late, I would have strongly suggested playing some non-HE games to take advantage of the fact that CR and ER were absent. I’m still itching to get some more Omaha 8 experience, but I guess nobody really likes Omaha.