A 5.25 hour session at 40 hands per hour is 210 hands. That is a very small number of hands to determine how your play is going. I think of a session as 1150 hands. Of course it requires multiple seatings to aquire this many hands. I play mostly online and I fiqure it takes me 24 hours to play 1150 hands on average.
I have had a bad run once where I hand 189 losing hands in a row (LIAR) and many runs of 80 to 100 LIARs. Usually this bad run will occur once per session (1150 hands). My style is tight aggressive. When I have the goods or a draw to the goods I bet and have a good instinct on when to back down and fold or to call or check down. I only play low limit fixed and low stake maximum buy in no limit holdem. I play AA-99, AKo-AJo, and AKs-JTs. I consider these my premium starters. I will play 88-22 depending on the number of players and position. Also I play AXs depending on position and number of players. I keep notes on every hand I play so I have very good statistics of my play.
The cards are running very good for you preflop if you can recieve the premium starters I listed above at a rate of 7.75% or above the total hands dealt. Remember I calculate this rate for a 1150 hand session. I calculated you had 15 premium starters in 210 hands for a percentage of 7.14. That is a bit on the low side so the cards were not running your way preflop. I didn't notice but one small pocket pair and no AXs hands. That is a pretty poor rate of starting hands. I would not have played 15 other hands in your list, so I would have saved an additional 60 dollars or so if I was in your seat. I may not have played as many AJo hands either. It would depend on position and what the other players did before me or what I might predict they would do after me. I keep detailed statistics and AJo is a very marginal profit maker in a loose 7 to 10 player ring. When you play holdem, what you don't lose is as important as what you win. You have to be disciplined in your starting hand selection and know when and how to play those marginal starters. You have to be careful when you have a maniac raising preflop frequently. You need to try to isolate yourself with a better starting hand than the maniac and bet when you have the best and maybe call the maniac down to see what he will stay in with. Maybe you can win with Ace high. Maybe any pair will do. Be careful when you have multiple players calling though with marginal starting hands.... it is usually going to require at least top pair top kicker with no scary flops threatening better showdowns.
I don't like A3o in the small blind unless there are 4 or less limpers. I won't call a raise with it. This hand is extremely marginal with 4 or more players and is not worth the time. Dump it if the flop doesn't hit you. If you hit an ace someone probably has a better kicker so be very careful. If you hit two pair the other ace could have a better two pair. Usually its better to just save your dollar. KQo I would play only on the button or cutoff and with 4 or less limpers. It is also a marginal profit maker. You have to hit a flush or a straight in no foldem every now and then to be profitable and you cannot make mistakes. Forget J5o and 32o, those hands are just playing the lottery. 32o will lose to a higher straight even if you hit lucky. You will always lose more than you win with those kind of hands.
I have been keeping records for 22 sessions now and I have logged 18 winneres and 4 losers. I think I have low limit holdem figured out. It is a grinding style but it works. I have had one disaterous session in no limit, where I lost 525 big blinds for the session. I hit only 5.45% premium starters, 3 sets in 64 pocket pairs, and won only 26 hands with the premium starters I had. It was one of those ugly sessions that can and will occur many timesif you play poker long enough. I can see why you should bankroll 1000 big blinds for a no limit game and 300 big blinds for a limit game. If you loose half of your bankroll drop down in limits to correlate to the bankroll you currently have. That would be good bankroll risk management.
Hope this helps and I welcome any comments or questions. I have only been playing online poker for 1.75 years so I am hardly an expert, but what I am currently doing is working for me. I didn't start to climb out of my hole untill I started this strategy. I was a loser in my first 8 months, but have broken out of that period since and have continuously made money. I am using this technique with aggressive positional play in tournaments as well and it seems to be working.
It's great to know that this was to some degree a bad run of luck. BTW, I forgot to mention in my initial post that when I say I missed all the flops for 5 hours straight, I didn't just mean that I lost all the hands. I meant I never hit as much as top pair and I'm including draws. I got absolutely ZERO straight draws and ZERO flush draws and no pairs. If I had wired pairs, I never hit trips and almost always had 1 or 2 overcards on the board. The only exceptions to this statement are the 3 hands I won (seperated by 5 hours and 200 hands of play) - two of which came after coming in with garbage.
I'm going to try playing online now and I'm definitely going to try upping my starting hand standards. I was basically playing any group 5 or better but I see you are more selective than that and maybe I should be too.
I know its tough to stomach at the time, but I try to think of it this way. Missing the flop is kind of a blessing. At least it makes your play easy. Fold and wait for the next hand. I would rather totally miss 4 straight flops and then nail the 5th one then get a peice of 5 flops and then miss my draws on them. Same idea with the cards preflop, its not the really bad hands that cost you money, just chuck em. Its those darn second best hands that cost you.
Very broadly speaking, when I'm running cold it's raise group 1-2, group 3 early, 4 middle and 5 late with minor adjustments for the relative tightness and looseness of the table. I had a bad run the last 2 weeks myself and this, combined with playing some 7-stud and multis online, and some better cards, helped get me back up and running.
The way the cards are dealt out and put on the board is uncontrollable. Sometimes the way you play the cards doesn't even matter. It's funny, I read this and it reminded me exactly of my last session I played (5/10 B&M). Fortunately for me, the opposite happened. First hand I had AKs in big blind. There was mad raising throughout. I think I caught a K on flop and I ended up losing around $60 (bought in for $200). Next, I get 77 in the small blind. Same crazy raising. Flop comes 10 4 6 rainbow. Pissed from the previous hand, I stick around to the end and catch my set on the river winning around $100. Next hand, as the dealer, I flop quad 5s. Someone catches their full house on the river and pays me off good, pot of at least $150. I got a run of good cards in long stretches afterwards (about 16 hours straight), and they paid out. Pocket pairs led to sets, big blind cards led to two pairs. Cashed out up over $800. Could have been higher (I was up around $1100), I didn't play smart towards the end. Anyways, my point is that, contrary to popular belief, luck runs hot and cold.
In low limit hold em, the cards play themselves alot of the time.
