What goes up, must come down.
Probably the less said about tonight's session, the better. :) It was pretty much the polar opposite of yesterday, in that I was pretty much card dead the whole time. That's not completely true, as later on I caught a few nice hands and actually managed to take down a pot or two, but overall things didn't go too well today. The game is, of course, 1/2 NLHE.

To give you an idea of the pace of today's session, my first two and a half hours were spent folding, folding, folding. Only once did I enter a pot, and that one I took a stab at after missing the flop, and got blown out by a turn bet. A couple hands after that, I flopped two pair out of position and basically got no action on it (though that one was my own fault for playing it passively; I honestly expected there to be more action on the hand behind me, but...oh, well.) So pretty much the first half of my night was a big yawn.

Things picked up slightly after that, though nothing really exciting went down. It was basically me getting blown off of semi-bluffs alternating with me taking down pots uncontested. One I remember was pocket jacks, wherein my pre-flop raising got me heads-up with the table's loosest and craziest player. The flop came ace high, and I bet out, hoping just to run him off if he missed, but he called. The turn came a king (could it get any uglier?), and I just fired again, basically having nothing else to do. He folded, and I took it down. The other notable win was having pocket kings in late position. Somebody had raised it to $5 early on, and there were two callers to that when it got back to me. I popped it to $20. The guy on my left, who had called the $5 out of turn, then called the $20. Loose Crazy Guy called out of a blind, and the other people in for $5 also called. The flop was three rags with two hearts. Checks around to me, I bet $75 (into a pot of $100). It folds around to the guy on my right, who is really giving it a lot of thought. Finally he folds, so I take that pot down, too.

That's pretty much it. I lost two big hands in a row, though, and those two hands basically spoke to me to call it quits for the night, so this is how my session ended.

In the first one, I'm in the big blind. The guy to my left (a different guy than the guy to my left above), UTG, looks at his cards, announced, "I've been waiting for this hand all night! I raise!" and he goes to $17. This guy was a total motormouth, and he'd been at the table the whole time I was there. Based on all the comments he's been making all night, I'm almost positive he has jack-nine. Whatever, though. :) There's a flat call to his left, then a bunch of other callers. Geez! It comes back to me in the BB, and I squeeze a pair of ladies, pocket queens. I announce a raise, complete the $17, and think for a minute. While I'm counting callers, UTG mucks his hand. (Technically this is an out of turn move, since I haven't completed my action yet. A little dealer trivia for y'all.) Somebody else complains, there's a little back-and-forth, but it's of no consequence. There are five other players in the pot, so I make it $75 more to go. This may seem a bit excessive, but it was basically a pot-sized raise. UTG+1, who flat called UTG's raise, calls me. Hrm. Not only that, but that call puts him basically all-in. Hrm again. It folds around, and then further down the line, this girl in middle position also calls. She says something like, "Let's make this hard on the overpair," or something like that. Frankly I didn't really understand what she meant by that. In any case, her call left her something like...probably a hundred and change behind. UTG+1 has got like $30 left. I've got them both covered by a couple hundred, so I figure no matter what happens, I have to jam the flop. Sadly, the flop comes ace-high. I jam, short-stack calls, and the middle position girl folds. Short stack has AK. Oh, well. The flop has two hearts, and one of my queens is a heart (and AK has no hearts), and the turn gives me slightly more hope by coming a heart, but the river is no help, and I lose. Bummer, but hey, I can't complain too much about that one. It was a coin flip with a big overlay, so hey, I'd take it again next time. I'm pretty sure that the middle position girl had a pocket pair. That's just her way.

So I'm bummed about that hand, but not shaken. The next hand, I'm in the small blind. There's some limping or so, but late position girl raises to $17. There's one caller, and it's back to me. I squeeze KJ off, and steam call it, mostly just since it's one of my favorite hands. Note that this is a crappy call, and I know that. I just felt like mixing it up after that last hand. Anyway, I no longer care about the crappy call when the flop comes KJx rainbow. Cha-ching! Not giving a shit about EV and just wanting to take down the pot, I jam it all in. (I'm first to act, remember.) Basically I wouldn't mind at all just taking down the pot, but I also figure people might read me as steaming and call the bet. Middle position girl shrugs, sighs, and calls off her last hundred or so. I find this an excellent sign, as I don't think she's good at this point. The third party folds. I roll over my KJ and wait. She called me with ace-queen and turns the gutshot straight. River no help, and I double her up. So, so dirty. She called off her last hundred to make $150 on a gutshot draw. And made it! Hate! Hate so much!

Anyway. At that point I figured it just wasn't my night tonight. It was getting late, and I had already figured I'd be done by then, so I just finished out my orbit and left. Suck. I came home and made dinner. In fact it's waiting for me right now as I type, so I'm going to sign off, eat, chill, and let the sadness of the beats ebb from my body. Better luck next time, huh?

So dirty!