"VARYING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION"

Party: Start $91; Current $123; + 32
CD: Start $94; Current $116; + 22

Total Start $185; Current $239; +54

A good week for my poker. I started with several good sessions on Party, which bumped me up nicely. I finally managed to find some looser tables (around 30% seeing the flop) and was able to pick them off effectively. I'm having a particularly good run with AA on Party. I've now had the rockets 8 times and won with them every time with an average of around $6 a pop - long may this continue.

I then opened a Neteller account and used it to open an account with CD Poker. Incidentally I opened both accounts with 50 quid, but the depreciation of the dollar meant that I got 94 for the CD account as opposed to 91 for the Party one. So far CD seems to be my sort of spot. It reminds me a lot of Ladbrokes when I was playing there. Not a lot of traffic (two or three ring games at .5/1 in the evening) but up to 40% seeing the flop, so plenty of action when you get a decent hand. I had a particularly good night on Friday when I could do no wrong - this happens occasionally :-) If I tried a blind steal, they called and then folded to my raise on the flop. If I got a high pair, I got takers and they held up - the whole bit.

That was great, but I knew it couldn't last and it didn't. Yesterday I had grim cards throughout the 2½ hours I played (saw flop 11% tells it's own story) and couldn't hit a flop with a big stick. Bad beat story warning. I had identified one particularly loose player called "99outs" when I finally got a hand - AA. I raise and get 3 callers including 99outs in the big blind. The flop comes 22K. Not bad. The two deuces are a minor worry but if someone has one, good luck to them. 99outs bets and I raise him (taking him for a King) and the other two drop out. The turn produces a 3. 99outs bets and I raise him. The turn comes as a K. Damn. He only has 2 outs and one of them turns up! I make the "crying call" and so it proves - he had K7 off. It was that sort of session.

Still overall, I am certainly not complaining. If I could keep up a win rate of $54 per week I'd be a very happy poker player.