Screw you, May

Well, May sucked. I'm glad it's over. I lost about $12,000, but at least it wasn't worse.

I've been looking through my hand histories to figure out how I can improve. Am I playing poorly, or should I expect to have losing months on a more regular basis than previously?

These hand histories are pretty sick. Those two hands -- my biggest pots of the month -- against Perfect Donkey represented a nearly $20,000 swing. If I had won even one of those two hands, that's a $10,000 swing. My feelings about that game haven't changed. I would play it the same way if I had to do it over again.

My next biggest loss came when someone called my all-in with a naked flush draw and hit. After that came my failed bluff into a set with AK. Then I ran two pair into a set when I was tilting, ran top pair into a set, semibluffed all-in vs. a turned flush and didn't make it on the river, pushed two pair into a turned gutshot straight and lost an all-in confrontation between my flush draw against my opponent's straight draw.

If there's any common theme, it's that bad beats perpetuated themselves by putting me into a desperate mindset. I pushed so hard to try to take down pots that I dug myself into a deeper hole.

The interesting thing to me is that there weren't many absolutes in any of these hands. Given the circumstances, my reads and the board texture, most of these plays can be justified. These losing plays weren't necessarily wrong, but some of them weren't optimal.

My biggest leak doesn't show up in the hand histories. That leak is that I often played while my judgment was impaired by tilt, alcohol or pride.

This is a game of small edges, and my advantage goes way up when I'm playing with a clear head. I'll work on that.

I feel good though. I won about $3,000 tonight, and I cheered myself up earlier by reveling in others' pain over at the Beats, Brags and Variance forum on 2+2.

Up next: Vegas baby!