It ain't easy
Hello, again, readers. Bet you thought I'd disappear again for another few months, right? :) No such luck. Granted, I haven't been keeping up with my hopes of blogging after every session, but I think that's something I have to ease into. In any case, these two weeks (of which I am currently in the middle) have turned out to be pretty job-heavy for me, so I didn't think I was going to get a lot of poker in. I did manage to squeeze in a couple sessions, though: one on my day off on Monday, and one after a really short shift on Tuesday.

Monday I completely and utterly stunk. Metaphorically. But I dropped quite a lot of cash down a sinkhole called Piss-Poor Poker, and frankly I got what I deserved. I don't know what it was, really...I just wasn't in the right mindset or something. But I played like complete crap. At least at this point in my career I'm man enough to admit that. But I have to say, it stung like hell. I even knew what was going on halfway through the session. I actually thought to myself, "Wow, I'm playing like complete crap! I should get the hell outta here!" Which, of course, I didn't. One thing of note about that session is that I was never up. I started out losing, and it never got better. That triggers one of my big tiltesque weaknesses, which is that it's tough for me to get up and leave stuck. At the end of this particular session, I actually count it as in my favor that I didn't leave the table completely busted. It counts more against me that I was almost busted. :) But at least I got out before I just jammed with something retarded just so I could end the day felted. By this time, the memory of that session is mostly erased (probably as a defense mechanism), so I don't have a lot I can take away from that time at the tables. From what I recall, I think I was just mostly card-dead, and I tried to make up for it by ill-advised aggressiveness. It's a pretty common problem, actually, and I really should know better. But, c'est la vie. I'll try and do better next time.

Oh, look. Next time. :) So, as mentioned, I pulled a really short shift at the job Tuesday evening, so I basically just went home, changed clothes, and headed right back out to the poker room. Having just gotten soundly spanked the day before, I resolved to come in and play tight and right from the get-go. Turns out I did nothing of the kind, but my looseness paid off, frankly, and I'm happy about it. :) The first hand I played, I ended up spiking a gutshot and just about doubled up. A few hands later, and I opened for a steal-raise with ace-rag and ended up flopping trips with my rag. I even hooked a caller all the way down for value on that one, so in my first two orbits I was already a contender with the surprisingly large number of big stacks that were at my table. Things calmed down a lot after that, and nothing really spectacular went down. The table lineup was actually pretty good. I stole a lot. That means a good table, as far as I'm concerned. :) Anyway. I stayed a little longer than was good for me, I think, and right at the end of the session I ran into some monstrously bad situations and lost a ton of profit. I ended up booking a win for the session, but it was nowhere near what it could have been. I found myself a lot more bummed about this than I would have expected. Definitely more than I should have been. I mean...a win's a win, right? Part of it was coming off the high I felt in the beginning of the session. I mean...when things started off, in just two hands I had erased the hole I dug for myself the previous night. But by the end of this night's session, the last night's hole was still there, which was a bummer, but I should be glad with any win, considering some of the shit that went down (more about which later). In any case, I consoled myself with a trip to the late-night buffet and paid for it with comp dollars, so after that I felt better. :)

What happened at the end of the session was unnerving as well as costly. I ran up against two big hands: pocket aces and pocket kings. Both times they caught sets. Both times I caught enough of the board to keep me interested. And both times it was against the same guy! Quite a bummer. Good thing I was leaving anyway, frankly, because that's the kind of shit that can tilt me. Now, in the interests of fairness, I must point out that there was a lot more than bad luck going on here. I tragically overplayed my hand both times. I chalk it up mostly to that particular guy. He just had this look about him...this smug air like he thought he was the greatest player of all time, and for some reason I just always refused to believe that he was actually strong when he represented. I also gave him lots and lots of my chips, because he was actually strong when he represented. Bad times. But, whatever. I'll try and do better about that next time. :)

So anyway...a big loss and a small win, that's basically my tally this week. I was actually going to post a hand recap based on some thoughts I left off with last week, but I'm actually post-job right now and kinda beat, so I think I'll save that for later on. I think in the future I'm going to want to play shorter poker sessions. I'm hoping maybe this will mean more frequent ones, as well, but we'll see. I just feel like the last few times I've kinda been pushing it at the tables. Not that I get tired in the sense of falling asleep, but once I reach a certain point, I think I start getting a little punchy and goofy, and I think I make dumb plays that I ordinarily wouldn't. It would undoubtedly help my bottom line a bit if I stopped making dumb plays, so...anything to help me avoid doing that would probably be a good thing. :) In any case, we'll see how it goes. Onward!