The Solace of Losing

I was down $50 at one point while getting my 200 points. I was actually all over the place. I was never up any money though; bad play and a suck-out made sure of that. Right out the gate, even before all of my 8 tables where around to the BB so I could begin playing, I get dealt QQ. I reraise a guy PR and he pushes. It was only $15 to call, ergo I disregard my usual fold in this situation due to the fact that it was less than half my stack, plus it was $15 to call $22. He turns over 88. The flop comes with an 8 for his 2-outer and I’m down $20 to start my session.

After that hurtful event I fight back grinding small pots and then I donk off a nice pot where I knew I was beat but couldn’t make the lay-down. I really have been good about the dumb calls lately since I changed my game, but the last few nights I have been making some bad moves and calls. I grind back a little and win one nice pot to put me back within $10 of where I started the session.

I get in a hand with AK from LP. I raise it to $2 and get 2 callers. Flop comes K75. EP bets $8. MP raises to $15. I have $40 or so at the time and I jam. Original flop bettor calls with the $15 he has left and so does MP guy who has me covered by a few bucks. EP guy shows AJ whom I have crushed. 2nd guy has 75s for a spiked junker. The board doesn’t pair, nor does an A or K and I’m down close to a full buy-in on the hand. This was a horrible play IMO. Not because I lost, thus just being a results oriented bastard, but because with a pot-sized bet and then a raise before me, I have to think that my TPTK isn’t good here. It screams trips actually. I only had $2 total invested in the had at that point and with double-aggression before me on the flop, I definitely should have folded and waited for a better opportunity.

I have had an issue in the last few days with these kinds of plays, where I will call or bet when I am pretty positive that I’m beat. I luckily haven’t lost a lot much because of my grinding and a few un-sucked big pots to put me back close to even – slightly up or slightly down. I have just wanted to get my chips in there and hope for the best. I think the problem here is that I also win some of these hands. So by getting rewarded on occasion, it is hard to extinguish the bad habit. (It’s a lot like trying to teach your dog to stop begging for food at the dinner table, but occasionally handing him a little snack off your plate. This intermittent reward will ensure that the bad habit will never become extinct.) It is the reason why fish keep coming back for more; they suck-out and think they played it well or at least they were rewarded with a nice pot here and there. Make sense? And since I understand what is going on, I have the opportunity to change. Now I just have to follow through. I’ve been so good lately. I honestly think this is where my game went earlier this year; I was playing like shit, doing exactly this bad habit. I will now make a conscious effort to stop and hopefully at least alleviate the issue. Of course I will make some bad plays and bad calls, but if I think through the big decisions on the monster pots and be willing to fold, I will make more profits because I am already coming out close to even, even with these bad plays and suck-outs. I just don’t want to revert back to my lemur big hand style. I fixed that leak over a month ago and I will fight tooth and nail each time I see it rearing its ugly head. I’m positive that if I would have just folded my iffy calls and bad all-in raises, I’d be up around $300 more last week. That is huge. I’m not talking normal calls and raises where you likely have the best hand and just were wrong; no, I’m talking stupid plays were if you think about how the hand was played out or looked at the scary board, you know your most likely beat.

Another thing I need to work on is value beating the river when the only way I get called, most of the time anyways, is if I’m beat. You know what I’m talking about. Where someone checks to you on each street, and when they check to you on the river, and you don’t have the nuts or even real close, but still bet the river. Or when the river pairs the board or completes the flush or straight draw, making your strong hand weaker and more vulnerable. I have improved substantially, but I still need to work on it. I don’t want to be overly passive either and miss out on extra profits. I’m just saying that I need to think about it a little harder.

A solace last night at least is that I came back from being down $50 and ended the session down only $20. I can live with that. Being down ½ a buy-in on a losing day truly isn’t bad at all. I am currently sitting at $445. That is after taking off $60 and BR’ing one of my Bros. I also still have my $130ish coming sometime soon from RakeBreak. So I am finally up for the year again and that truly is a solace to me. I have mentally been so negative about poker for most of the year, feeling defeated and unskilled, so this really has given me a much-needed psychological boost. I can honestly say that I once again feel in control of my game. I feel that I once again can and should be earning money the majority of the sessions like I used to. As I play now I check the cashier pop-up and watch my status every so often and my trend is always positive. If I lose a nice hand I drop of course, but then it starts climbing again steadily earning above the blinds and rake. So I know if I can keep the iffy big pots under control and I don’t get too many bad beats I will always end sessions in the black for the most part. I finally have a winning style again like last year’s and I don’t want to stray too far from grace. I honestly think my current game has more earning potential than last year’s tried and proven style, plus I’m not playing like a robot. I am currently out-playing opponents with my aggressive flop play with marginal hands and taking down a lot of smallish pots, where my old style I always waited and waited for a nice hand and then rammed and jammed a tight-weak-aggressive game. It worked but I wasn’t really learning anything new and I was earning less over the same amount of hands. I think once I made it up the ladder too much further the players at those stages of the game, with their higher poker thinking levels, they would have seen right through my uncomplicated and robotic style, and I would have found it difficult to make a profit at those levels. I would have been stuck at $100NL or maybe $200NL forever. Not that I couldn’t make a nice profit at those stakes, but I truly do have aspirations to go higher. I mean shit, some under-aged kids are playing on their father’s accounts or finding other ways around it and are pulling in so much money that they will never even think about going to college or if they do, it will be totally for educational purposes and not to find a decent paying career. I know a kid that sold his Stars’ freemoney, starting out with $10 that he made from those free dollars, and in his senior year in high school, made $100,000. Could you imagine being 17 year’s old with 100G’s of your own money. It is likely a good thing that I didn’t, because I’d probably be dead. But anyways, I am happy with my game and if I stop with the shitty big-pot play, I think I can start to make some nice coin and continue to learn more aspects of the game. One of the reasons that I took the time to write an in-depth account of my current style, is in case I start losing again, like up until just recently, I have something to go back and reference, so it hopefully doesn’t take as long to fix the leaks like it did this time.

Lastly, today is the day for the HORSE tourney. As I stated yesterday, my Bro is playing for me. It starts at 3:10pm. I get off at 7pm and I hope he is still in it. Being limit I’m guessing it is longer than a 4 hr tourney. I don’t really know, because I don’t play many tournaments. Total cash pool is $5000, with 1st place paying out a cool $900. $450 would really boost my BR. $90 places pay out. If the previous 3 freerolls that I’ve qualified for were any indication of how this tourney’s turnout will be, I’d say 400 out of the 1000 will register. Well since this one is for $5000 instead of $2 Grand more players will likely make time. Plus it is on Sunday in the middle of the day, so that might also increase the turnout. I hope not, because they pay 90 places no matter the turnout, so the less the better.