Ooo the rush...

Feb kicked off with a nice little ~15 BI downswing, over 14k hands. I certainly didn't feel like I was playing that badly but when you get stuck that far in one stretch it would be agrievous to discount a lot of donking on my part contributed. Of course it just doesn't help when you run into stuff like this...

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

UTG: $35.40
MP: $50.00
Hero (CO): $60.05
BTN: $70.10
SB: $46.70
BB: $70.55

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is CO with 7 7
2 folds, Hero raises to $1.50, 2 folds, BB raises to $4.50, Hero calls $3

Flop: ($9.25) 7 5 6 (2 players)
BB bets $6, Hero raises to $24, BB raises to $66.05 all in, Hero calls $31.55 all in

Turn: ($120.35) 5 (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($120.35) Q (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $120.35
Hero shows 7 7 (a full house, Sevens full of Fives)
BB shows 5 5 (four of a kind, Fives)
BB wins $117.35
(Rake: $3.00)

120 bbs deep effective, it was probably questionable whether flatting profitable here, but as it turns out villain can 3bet with 55 so I guess it is.

Despite having read about running into weird spots in rush when two very deep stacks bump heads it was definitely the one thing that really stood out to me in trying to adjust to the game (and may be in part responsible for my bad start) is being aware of the different stack sizes that do pop up every hand. Being aware of when opening pre becomes marginal or worse due to some shorter stacks having popped up, and vice versa playing with proper implied odds in mind when up against another deep stack I suspect makes a sizeable difference to winrate over the long run.

Anyhow managed to turn it around (also another clue that bad play was contributing, as I started to feel like I was playing better and thinking more clearly when the line started swinging up again) and thanks to some nice rakeback and full tilt bonus clearing I made it back in the black by the end of the month (some 20k hands later). (NB: I did get suckered in by rush and made my first deposit at FT, I wonder how much their numbers have gone up.)

The rush crush got me thinking. A: Just how deep would I be ok with getting KK arrr-in preflop? B: Would buying in for some sort of random amount between the minimum and the maximum give you any sort of edge against players who are making stupid stack size reads to work out if you are a solid player (although this is probably negated by the PT/HEM's picking up rush functionality, and of course the equity you lose not being able to stack someone for a full stack)?

Scratch.