Friday, June 24, 2005
A $350 Lesson in Poker...
Don't play when you're tired and your emotions aren't in check.
Cost of that lesson: $350
If I got good cards last night, one of two things happened: someone paired their inferior kicker or got their playing their bullshit cards.
At least three times I flopped a straight with bottom side of the cards and someone got there on the river after calling a preflop raise with K8 offsuit out of the blinds. I definitely cost myself some money as well, though. There were at least three hands that I played that I pushed on the river even though it had flashed in my mind what they were probably holding, and everytime I had been correct, I was beat.
Trip aces with king kicker and the guy spiked his boat on the river. Guy flopped the straight with Big Lick and I thought I had the nut flush draw as well as a piece of the board... I was wrong. That was my biggest mistake of the night and chalk that one up to being exhausted and not in check with where I should have been in order to play No Limit poker. That was $140 gone. Lost another $140 at the end of the night after rebuying (when I should have just gone home) and unfortunately just took a tough one on the chin when my pocket queens ran into pocket aces.
I was much more frustrated last night about how I had played, but after thinking about it a little bit more today I'm not as upset. I made one donkey play, but other than that the donkies at the table just got lucky last night for the most part. I had been reading SuperSystem 2 yesterday afternoon and in a bit of foreshadowing was going over Todd Brunson's into to the Stud section.
He basically boiled it down to the following bit of advice: If you go to a pet shop and buy a dog then bring him home and get upset when he barks, you're the one with the problem. Dogs bark, it's what they do, you can't teach them to meow or moo, so you just have to live with the fact that they will bark. Bad poker players will play bad poker. They will call out of position, play bad cards and yes, they will sometimes get the better of you. You don't yell at them for playing bad poker because that's what you want them to do and if you can't take it, sit at a different game. One that will most likely be less profitable for you.
Okay. Time to get back to rebuilding the bankroll...
Cost of that lesson: $350
If I got good cards last night, one of two things happened: someone paired their inferior kicker or got their playing their bullshit cards.
At least three times I flopped a straight with bottom side of the cards and someone got there on the river after calling a preflop raise with K8 offsuit out of the blinds. I definitely cost myself some money as well, though. There were at least three hands that I played that I pushed on the river even though it had flashed in my mind what they were probably holding, and everytime I had been correct, I was beat.
Trip aces with king kicker and the guy spiked his boat on the river. Guy flopped the straight with Big Lick and I thought I had the nut flush draw as well as a piece of the board... I was wrong. That was my biggest mistake of the night and chalk that one up to being exhausted and not in check with where I should have been in order to play No Limit poker. That was $140 gone. Lost another $140 at the end of the night after rebuying (when I should have just gone home) and unfortunately just took a tough one on the chin when my pocket queens ran into pocket aces.
I was much more frustrated last night about how I had played, but after thinking about it a little bit more today I'm not as upset. I made one donkey play, but other than that the donkies at the table just got lucky last night for the most part. I had been reading SuperSystem 2 yesterday afternoon and in a bit of foreshadowing was going over Todd Brunson's into to the Stud section.
He basically boiled it down to the following bit of advice: If you go to a pet shop and buy a dog then bring him home and get upset when he barks, you're the one with the problem. Dogs bark, it's what they do, you can't teach them to meow or moo, so you just have to live with the fact that they will bark. Bad poker players will play bad poker. They will call out of position, play bad cards and yes, they will sometimes get the better of you. You don't yell at them for playing bad poker because that's what you want them to do and if you can't take it, sit at a different game. One that will most likely be less profitable for you.
Okay. Time to get back to rebuilding the bankroll...
