Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Some nasty hands.

I have been on quite a run lately. I will run my roll up to around 550-570 then back down to 470-480. Rinse and repeat. And every single time I get JUST to the point of breaking through, I get a hand like this it seems.

KK
I bet every damn street and get my money in exactly where I want to.

Or this one:
AA
Just nasty, but nothing extraordinary. I think it's more the timing of it than anything. I am coming off a productive session, and getting ready to sign off. Then I get in this awesome spot where I am going to go past the 600.00 mark...

Or annoying ones like this:
KK
Thankfully it was against a short stack and not a huge pot like the others. I guess half a buy in isn't small, but its not a monster either.

And then, for some reason, after all this good play and bad luck, I do something idiotic like this:
88
This is a truly shameful hand and not for the faint of heart. I was distracted on the turn and paid dearly for my lack of attention. I played it fine up until that point, but should have been fucking jamming the shit out of that turn. Then, after making that mistake, I failed to look at the board when I got it in. Only good news, (and probably the reason I gave the free card on the turn) is that I was not at a full buy in. I think I was hoping that he had a A, would pot bet the river and then I could come over the top having been committed. Of course I did just this, but didn't notice that an A had me crushed. So poor.

Anyhow, I will fight through my slump and power on to the higher levels soon enough. Damnit.

4 comments:

Ryan said...

Those are nasty. Amateur-magician-style suckout on that set over set! And then runner-runner plus a misplay? Cruel.

Will said...

Dude, what were you thinking? Top set of K when your opponent was obviously on a strong quad draw? Which leaves you with a one outer? Hee haw!!! lol

At the risk of overusing the phrase...so sick. I've run into a few of those too when you get the money in plenty good and get stacked by a random-number-of-fingers-on-one-hand-outer. Glad to hear that you're shrugging them off well though. I am really really trying to get into high volume robot mode online so that the sick beats don't stand out so much and the times of getting stacked by coolers are dwarfed by the times where I'm stacking donks getting their money in bad. Got my new monitor and will be able to multi-table in STYLE now instead of having to pick specific seats at the table just so I can see my hole cards from under all the overlapping tables on my laptop screen.

Also pays to remember that good players don't suckout because they don't get their money in bad in the first place.

Snowmans hand: at least it would have been the same result if you hammered the turn. AQ folding there? Doubt it. ROTty I know but takes some of the sting off.

jsola said...

Yeah those are some sick beats, not much you can do about that other than grin and bear it and remind yourself about the long run.

As far as the bad play with the 8s, ouch. One thing I've been thinking about lately, and especially as I've been trying to climb the ladder with my real bankroll, is that as you move up and your opponents get better, your winrate will naturally decline a little bit. This means the further up you go, the more bad or tilty play will cut into your profits. It seems obvious, but it makes keeping a level head extremely important, and standing up when you're not playing optimally a crucial decision to make.

By the way, I picked up zen and the set of poker on your recommendation. That book is pretty incredible, I'm about halfway through and am completely loving it so far. Its funny how a book with next to no actual poker theory in it is quickly becoming my favorite text on the subject.

Marshall said...

Good stuff Joe. Totally hear what you are saying about minimizing losses becoming increasingly important as I move up. At the levels below I could lose a few buy ins but feel like I would just get it back pretty quick, but big wins are getting harder to come by even at .10-.20.

About the book; excellent man! Great read, and even better the second time to just keep reminding you not to stray. And the fact that it has almost zero actual strategy is I think a huge strength of the book. Strategy advice is specific, where this advice is more of a way to handle the game as a whole.

I think I need to take a bit of time to re-read that book while I am at it..