One Day to Go in the Challenge

About 30 hours to go, I'll have very little remaining time to add to the Eeyore roll, which (proudly) stands at $167.43, plus about $14 in rakeback coming today/tomorrow). After reaching the $194 apex (and bragging about it my post), I had a horrible session (punctuated by my overplaying AQ), dropping down to $110. Never deterred (again, sole motivation = Whitmore's "I'll gladly short Adam" face), I kept plugging away, and have climbed back up near my June high.

I know Marsh (likely as a result of me raising the topic with him--duh) is re-engaged somewhat, and who knows if $180'ish will be enough to take it down. Regardless, I'm pretty pumped to have climbed out of my late May hole. Some interesting lessons:

* My game (or at least my attention span) seems best suited to play a single table, with stakes that cause me some level of concern. I'm not sure what would happen if I bought in $4 into a single $.02-$.04 table. I like to think that I habituate well to the stakes I'm playing, but I imagine I'd be hard pressed to respect the stakes when the downside risk is $4.

* I spent a lot of time (while playing $.10-$.20 and $.25-$.50) fixated on the 3-bet/4-bet tendencies of my opponents. By focusing significantly on that single facet of the game, and taking copious notes regarding those tendencies, I believe I've been able to exploit my opponents. In a way, the limited player pool of Cake has assisted me. Were I playing on FTP, I would have a much harder time leveraging that info given the huge player pool.

* One important tweak I made, as I put myself into the high risk world of putting a big % of my 'roll to work at one table, was to stop firing if I raised pre and then missed the flop. Assuming the board was accommodating, I certainly c-bet most of the times, but I resisted the temptation, when called pre and on the flop, to keep trying to push my way through. While I may've ultimately bought a few hands, I certainly would've blasted off my stack more often. And, working without a net (given the huge chunk being risked), I simply couldn't endure the volatility.

* It's ok to be bluffed. Again driven by life on the edge, I started to be more willing to simply lay down my hand when my opponent showed a ton of strength in the face of my apparent strength. I'm sure I've mucked quite a few winners, but I'm also sure the approach helped me survive the unique circumstances I found myself in.