Results Oriented

Put in a couple hours at Pokerstars tonight; lost like 3 buyins b/c that's how I roll these days but feel like I played very well overall. Ran my overpairs into sets twice [neither were places I could even consider folding--one was a reraised pot and the other a super-drawy flop against a guy with a postflop AF of like 12(!)]. Got sucked out on in one big pot with bottom set against a flush draw.

I'm planning to play a lot more at Pokerstars this year. I figure I can put in enough hands to make their points system be worth more than rakeback at Full Tilt. Also, there's something kind of alluring to me about chasing supernova--I can be less results oriented in the short term and just focus my obsession of "keeping score" on seeing how many player points I can accumulate. Pokerstars really has a fantastic rewards program for heavy multi-tablers--I think someone calculated that achieving "Supernova Elite" is worth over $100K in and of itself (in terms of the different bonuses you get as you accumulate points). It won't be possible for me to get Elite w/ a full-time day job, but if I don't get to supernova by the end of the year, I'll be highly disappointed. Only two problems stand in my way right now--one, I am not nearly as used to Stars' software as I am to FTP, so it's gonna take me a while to work up to 12 tables. I only played six tonight and probably shouldn't go above 8 for the time being. Second problem is simply that the full-ring tables are infested with multitabling 2p2ers; I feel like NL200 at Stars plays like NL400 at Full Tilt. And it's weird not having any read on the regulars yet -- I feel like I can't take any nonstandard lines b/c I don't know how anyone will react to them. (Maybe this is a good thing, heh.)

OK, my third problem is that if I don't stop running bad soon I'm gonna bust my Stars account. I've never busted an account in my life, and I don't really want to start now!...I'm not actually in much danger of losing my Stars roll, but it would be kind of demoralizing to have to move down to NL100. This month so far has been demoralizing enough. I'm getting seriously worried that this is going to be my first losing month ever, which would be pretty funny* considering December was my best month ever. *Unfortunately, I don't mean funny as in Woody Allen-movie funny, but more like "please just shoot me now" funny.

Here is the best example of why poker is a cruel, cruel game and how it can toy with you. First graph is the first 15 days of December (hottest I've ever run); second is the first 15 days of January (not the worst I've ever run, but painful nonetheless).

December:


January:


The one good thing about downswings is they really motivate me to work on my game. I hate losing. Gonna go watch a video and try to plug a leak or two.