Day 5: +$31.20 (+31 BB at $.50/1)

Overall: +$91.20 in 730 table minutes

Back to the winning ways. I played much better today and it felt good. I'm once again within one average day of getting to the next level.

Hand 1: This is actually a hand of little consequence. I'm in the BB with AJo. The action is fold, raise, cold-call, 3-bet, fold, and it's my turn. I fold. It turns out the first player open-raised with 72s, the coldcaller had J7s, and the 3-bettor hand QJo. It's still a fairly easy fold, though, unless I've got better information on the raiser and (more importantly) the 3-bettor.

Hand 2: Here's a botched hand. I raise AQs UTG and get called by both blinds. The flop is KKQ two-suited (only one of my suit), they check to me and I bet. They both call. The turn is an offsuit 7 and they check to me again. I stupidly checked. This is a no-brainer bet-fold situation. The river is an ace, a player bets into me and I call, and I chop with A8s (who had the flush draw on the flop).

Hand 3: It's good that I get some hands right. Aggressive UTG raises and it's coldcalled. I've got 55 in the small blind. I semi-coldcall. The big blind folds and it's three to the flop. It comes out 962 rainbow. I check, PFR bets, coldcaller folds. PFR is a somewhat tight player, but he seems very raise-fold postflop. As I look back at his stats, even after 81 hands his AF is still infinity on the flop and turn. I check-raise him because most of the time he has overcards and I'm getting value. Surprisingly, he folded (most players with overcards will call). This probably means he had a pocket pair like 88 and I pushed him off the best hand. Woo hoo!

Hand 4: I have KJo in the small blind and it's raised to me by the cutoff. Sometimes I fold this, depending on the player. However, this player was pretty new, so I didn't have much to work with. I decide to 3-bet him and see how it plays out (semi-coldcalling is okay in this spot if I'm sure I can outplay both BB and PFR postflop OOP). This knocks out BB and it's heads up. The flop is 773. I bet, he calls. The turn is a 5, bringing a double flush draw, and I bet again. He raises. Two overcards suggests 6 outs and I'm getting 7.5:1 to call. However, I discount a little because of the flush draw, the paired board (sometimes I'm drawing dead), the chances that sometimes my overcards are dominated, a small discount if he decided to get tricky with AA/KK, and I think I'm down to 2-3 outs. I fold.

Hand 5: Sometimes I overplay a hand. It's true. But it's often correct in blind defense against players who fold. I defend my BB from a button raise with QTo. The flop is 872 with a flush draw. I check-raise. The turn is a 2, bringing the flush, and I bet again, getting called. The river is an offsuit 4. This is a spot where I go ahead and fire off the third round to try to knock out ace hands which happened to be holding a club. I actually prefer that the turn does not bring the flush redraw in these spots because it often means I must bet the river. Unfortunately, he called and won with A7s.

Hand 6: A bad beat (because they happen). I steal from SB with J7o against a tight player, and he 3-bets me (crap). The flop is 877 and he bets into me. I'm about to raise, but then I see that his stack is small enough that he's likely going all-in. So I wait until the turn to raise to try to get him to commit the whole thing. The turn is a 5 and I get all his money in the middle. Sadly, the river is a 6, giving 99 his 6-outer to win.