CR and ER took last week off, and JB vetoed the idea of playing short-handed, so we skipped a week. This week the regular group was back:

    This week  Cumulative  Average
	CR    +$6.05      +$6.05   +$0.47
	EM    -$1.40     -$11.85   -$0.79
	ER    -$2.95      +$6.35   +$0.49
	JB    -$5.00     -$11.15   -$0.80
	JC    -$1.55     +$15.55   +$1.11
	Me    +$4.85      +$5.80   +$0.39

My suggestion of doubling the buy-in this week was nixed; but as JB snidely pointed out, I had to do a double buy-in anyway less than two hours into the night. I was getting out-kicked, out-pocketed, and possibly out-played, especially by CR. It was brutal. My two best hands during this time were probably KK and AQs. I won with the first and chopped with the second, but that only prolonged my descent.

After the second buy-in, I started to do a little better. In the last 2-3 orbits, I hit a monster rush: 79s beat JJ with a runner-runner flush against a river straight, A8 beat 9T with a river boat against a turn straight, 89s won with a flopped straight against what I assume was a draw that never materialized. The 79s was a true suckout. I called a minimum raise in the BB pre-flop and flopped top pair. I called the bet and turned the straight and flush draws. I called the bet and riverred the flush. Felt bad about that one.

In those first two hours where I lost hand after hand to CR, other people were losing some decent pots to him as well. He took pot after pot and built up his stack to nearly 3 times his buy-in. Over the next hour and half he eventually lost a few bucks, but still made it out of here the big winner. He’s still third in cumulative winnings, but he’s definitely on a good trajectory.

EM put JC on the spot a couple times when a flush appeared on the board. It was clearly painful for him to fold, but fold he did. Overall, EM’s running bad. Her theory is that she needs to be pissed off to win. Possibly. Maybe if I had done that 79s runner-runner against her jacks early on it would have changed the game. Still, she’s not down to the depths that I hit after the first ten weeks of keeping records: -$13.

ER was pretty mad about my boat beating her straight. I don’t feel as bad about that one as I do the 79s. I had the best hand on the flop and when I raised her turn bet, she just called. A re-raise would have been grounds for thought. I may have called anyway, not believing that she’d made her straight. Another down week for ER, but her cumulative’s still good for second place.

Tonight was a lot like some of my NL forays. Down, down, down, then a rush to set things right, and I’m done. Which does wonders for my confidence in my abilities. That’s meant to be sarcastic. I’d rather be lucky than good, but I’d still like to be good.