It's all a balancing act

I've been away from the tables for a while as other areas of the work/life/poker trilogy took priority but I've managed to squeeze some time in. After a disastrous start to the month where I was down $350 I've managed to turn that around so I'm $50 up, the trick has been cutting back from playing 6->8 tables of .25/.50 NL and only playing 2 tables. It's a lot less effective at working off bonuses but it demonstrates the difference between limit and no-limit, with limit it was about playing a small edge across as many tables as possible while you can make the same money playing just a couple of no-limit tables well.

Tonights session ended up $60 despite a costly hand running aces into queens that flop a set (I still get stacked in these situations), the hand that came to my rescue was a gutshot that hit. With QJo in the big blind I had to call $1 with four players already in, the raise was from early position so I expect I need to hit the flop hard but I'm getting nearly 7:1. The flop comes rainbow A98 and the pre-flop raiser bets $4, a mid-position player calls and I make the call as I close the action. This is a play I'm making more often on the flop since playing NL cash tables as you tend to get very high implied odds if you hit and can easily throw it away to a large bet on the turn if you miss. The Ten hits on the turn and the pre-flop raiser bets $15, mid position shoves for $25 and I call as this puts the other player all-in too (he obliges by calling his last few $). EP had AK, MP had 67s and my straight took the pot. Part of the benefit of playing only a couple of tables I think has been finding spots to stack opponents, these can look more like folds if you're scanning over 8 tables.