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Worm,

I hear ya. I have made excellent cash over about 2.5 yrs playing on line. But I am in the middle of an extended (multi month) and brutal downturn - hands like the ones you are seeing are killing me as well. I just cannot seem to break the cycle, since two or three of these second-best hands in a session can pooch the entire night.

Just the other day, I was in a heads up situation - started with pocket queens against a guy with air - just a baby pair. He catches open queens and his takes down the pot. He hit his open queens when I already had queens up. Guys hitting gut shots and smoking my trips or rolled hands. It just never ends.

With that little whine out of the way, I think that the "standard" tight play (that has worked very well for me in the past) that works at many sites will not work at certain sites. The antes and rake will bleed you dry - throw in a few hands like you are seeing and things turn tough fast.

I have come to believe that I need to play more hands with higher implied odds, since you will get paid off when you hit, because these guys are going to chase no matter what you do. So I have taken to expanding my third street range, depending on position, deception if the hand hits, re-draw potential, how much of an overlay I am getting, among others. I am also trying to be very disciplined about letting go early, depending on action and how the earlier streets unfold. All of this is intended to give myself the opportunity to hit more big pots.

Not sure if this is the answer, but at least I will play more hands while I am getting killed [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]