Struggles

I've been struggling lately, in all aspects of poker. I'm either going card dead or losing when my hand is dominating. I'm not playing as well either - even though it's $5 stakes, I'm not giving players enough credit. I'm back down to level 1 thinking, doing things like calling bets with KK when it's obvious the dude has flopped trips. There's probably several reasons that I'm not seeing the success I did before, but I think the biggest is that I'm not as excited about the bankroll challenge as before. When I first started, the initial excitement of the challenge, coupled with immediate success, kept me positive about the whole thing, and as a result, I probably got it in my head that this was going to be easier than it has been. Now that I'm facing some resistance and one of many inevitable downswings, it's more difficult to stay as positive. So I start doing things like playing cash games, jumping up a buyin here and there, or just donking it up at current levels, just to make it more interesting.

Nevertheless, I will persevere and push forward with the bankroll challenge. I can't let short-term success trick me into thinking that it's going to be easy or that I can win them all. This isn't a short-term challenge; the main goal of all this is to build a bankroll, and that just won't happen overnight, or even in a month. I can make the mistake that others have made and try to move up to soon or chase that big payout, but that's not playing smart, and playing smart is what I'm trying to do.

Just some other thoughts:

--Round 2 of HUC5 may start tonight, against cmitch. In my limited experience in blogger games, I don't recall if I've played against him. But if the dude is playing games against people like Brian Townsend, then I've got my work cut out for me. Of the 8 that are left, I think I'm probably the consensus underdog. I'm like George Mason, but instead of a "feel good" story, I'm more of a "Who the fuck is mclarich?" story.

--Played the Dookie last night (turbo O8) and went out on the bubble. I might have been able to wait out the bubble, but homey don't play that. After Hoy limped,I pot-raised from the button with AAK6, single suited. We saw a flop of Q63, two diamonds (not my suit). I had to push & Hoy had to call with something like JT92, three diamonds. He found a 6th diamond on the turn and that was it for me. I'm not sure that I like Hoy's limp-call preflop with a 3-sooted, 3-connector hand. Dunno if he thought I might be stealing or thought that the sooted connectors were strong enough to warrant a call there, but he had the stack to see a flop and it just happened to hit decently enough to call a push.

--I changed my mind and decided not to expand my recap on my FF team. Judging from the lack of comments, it appears that no one cares, so I'll keep the post as it is. Overall, I'm feel pretty good about my team. I think the only mistake I made was not picking up a Defense in round 14, when I took Vincent Jackson. I think I was too concerned about having so many spots on a bye during week 6, so I felt that I could wait and pick up a Defense when I did. But I had a chance at the Eagles D, who have a Week 5 bye, and it would have been a better choice to take them rather than take a sleeper for my 6th WR spot. It could also be argued that I should have taken a TE a bit earlier, but Heath Miller is decent, and at least I have someone representing the Steelers for me.

--One last FF note. I'm a total idiot, and when I submitted my lineup for FF, I left off Reggie Wayne. I still played Peyton, but I missed out on a huge 24 point effort from Wayne. God I'm retarded sometimes.