Why Play Through Misery

When Im running bad and poker is miserable I sometimes get the questions about why. Why do it when it makes you so miserable so much of the time? Right after the beat I tend to be very fatalistic and talk about being cursed and pretty much just rant and rave for about 18 hours. But after I calm down I do return to the fact that I love to play. The best answer I can come up with is: Do you think Kevin Garnet should have quit playing basketball when he was with the T-Wolves because he was losing so much for so many years and it drove him absolutely crazy? Do you think his disappointment in the results shouldve caused him to give up the game? Im not saying Im the Kevin Garnet of poker or anything but the same way an NBA player practices and watches tape and gets ready to play, a lot of player including me like to read books, participate in online forums, and watch videos and learn more to play the game. Why? For the same reason. We love the game and want to play our best. I believe if you put in the work you can be at least a small winning player even with only situational math and no instinct for the game. We're not degenerates. If we get our money in good and get unlucky for a long stretch or if we get drafted by the Clippers and have the bad luck of being on a crappy team we dont just quit playing. We feel like everytime we step on the court or sit at a new table it is a new game. So why is it different to the wives or the friends who think we are just degenerate gamblers chasing cards?

Typical Results

Well I went out on the bubble in the tournament and I left the cash game after getting all in preflop with AA vs KK and losing. My long fun night of cash poker lasted about 45 minutes. I knew I had to leave because I was so damn pissed. I was also pissed because I had stuck $30 in one pot and $39 in another and didnt even get to see the flop. One of those times I raised 7.5 times the bb, got called, then a guy goes all in UTG with a $39 short stack so I call (coulda raised all-in here I guess or just folded) then I get an all-in push from the SB behind me. So I have 77 and figure Im at least looking at 3 or 4 over cards to beat and probably one over pair. I figure at best Im 40% to win and more likely Im like 17% if either has an over pair. I almost called even though it didnt make any sense to call but the way they played the hand was fubar too. It was $107 more to me. I had $39 in there. I gotta call $107 to win $230 which if they have overs and share an Ace would be barely correct to call. I fold and they both have A10. I woulda scooped. Anyway after the AA vs KK fiasco I just left.

J4 is a Monster

Going to play 1/2 tonight. I've quit smoking so I won't have that shit to deal with. I wonder how truly bad it is to miss a coupla free hands every hour due to smoke breaks. I'm bout to work out a little and maybe run. Quitting smoking have put 5 lbs on me. I hope I can not smoke through those spirit crushing bad beats. So anyway I played the Love shack tournament Monday. Started of playing loose and stupid. Cracked AA with J4 from the button but the raise was plenty to get me out. Maybe if this dude didn't love to show 7 duece in that spot all the time I wouldn't have put him on any two cards. But I flopped a flush draw and turned the flush and he bet it all into me since he had the Ace flush draw at that point. So I doubled up and won a few more pots playing stupid and then got called down light a coupla times and settled in a started playing right. Well right in my mind but I'm sure horribly wrong from a good players perspective. Blinds shot up fast and before you know it nobody has more than 20 big blinds and it was a shovathon. I'm usually pretty good about picking good spots to shove so I picked up a good amount of chips but then lost them not shoving and actually seeing a coupla flops. Anyway I bitched a cryed enough that we chopped it 6 ways. I was sitting with 4 big blinds when we chopped so it was a good outcome for me. Still made over $130 each. I made $80 in the short handed side table and ate good pizza and had to leave. I actually told then when I was leaving all night but it still feels crappy to win a little and bolt. Speaking of leaving my anonymous heckler made it pretty clear he is a Loveshack reg with his comment last post. Obviously he knows I left the game to go hang out with my girlfriend. Haha mother fucker. I'm at least glad that its someone fucking with me and not some random idiot who cares way too much.

Shit my game got cancelled. I thought about trying out the new club but just decided to hang out with friends. Looking forward to Monday night now.

Serial Killers and Florida Retirees and Life Tilt Session

Well Ive played two sessions since my last post. One 13 hour marathon at Harrahs and one 4 hour debacle at the Love Shack. The Harrahs session was bizzare. There was always some mentally unstable person at the table who was non-stop talking. Usually there was more than one and they talked to each other. The first one talked for 3 hours straight about basketball. A fucking Duke fan. At one point I asked him to leave the dealer alone cause we are on a time rake. Then there was this very scary looking guy. He looked like a nerdy scientist serial killer. He acted even more like one. Just erratic. Getting mad a starring people down for a coupla hands because they had the audacity to raise him. I check raised him of top pair one time with my flush draw and showed it and I thought I might end up as a head in his freezer. My favorite hand of the night was when I made it $20 to go (playing $1/$2 No Limit BTW) from the button against two limpers and I get called by the small blind who had just lost a pot and was on tilt. He tried to talk serial killer into playing to justify his odds. I even told him he was tilt calling and trying to get people to justify it. Also calling was this idiot old man from Florida (pronounced Flaariduh). I had Ace10 and the flop is 10,6,2. I bet the flop when they check to me and they both call. The turn is another duece and small blind (a talkative nice brotha named Corey) donks out $100. The old idiot from Flaariduh calls the $100. I cant even fathoim how Im beat but I fold anyway. The river is another 6 and SB bets out another $100 and Flaariduh idiot pushes all in. SB calls his last $130ish and the flip the cards. SB has K2 for the low boat but he is beat by 76 for the high boat. SB jumped up cussin and left and I cussed under my breath for the rest of the session at Mr. 76 offsuit for $20 preflop calling $150 more dollars to hit a 2 out on the river. There were tons and tons of morons floating to the table that session but I never could get the right situations to win a big pot. The biggest pot I got was when Mr. Juicy Poker himself dealt me AA and KK moved in on me preflop and I held up. I did buy my share of pots and that kept me a float but at the end of the 13 hour session basically my meager profit was from the AA vs KK. I woulda shoulda coulda won a big pot when I flopped a flush but I got four flushed on the river. I still made money because the side pot I was in with this horribad dude was bigger than the main pot and he was drawing to a straight on an all spades flop with a lot of action. Genius.

My Love Shack experience was so bad and so avoidable. I wanted to play so bad but for the wrong reasons. I had gotten some very disturbing medical news earlier and wanted to get my mind off it and thought it wouldnt effect me. It did. I played loose and weak and talked a lot and made bad moves at bad times and chased my losses and didnt quit when I was supposed to in order to go see my waiting girlfriend who was pissed and hurt by the time I quit way to late to go see her. That about sums it up. No hands to talk about really. My last hand I went broke after raising the pot with Q7 of hearts and getting a lot of callers and flopping a flush draw. I bet big and got pushed in. I had more in the pot than I had left and I called. The heart came. He had K6 of hearts. FML per usual.

Feeling Better, Getting Better, and Expecting Better Results

Went to the Belle after work Wednesday. I sat for 4 hours and except for the 30 minutes my friend was dealing I never had a pocket pair nor did I ever hit my Big Slick type hands. Fortunately (but sadly) there was a girl playing who had no clue and just kept pulling out $100 from her bra. She musta bought in for $1500 by the time I left. If the other players wouldnt have strung me up I woulda asked her wtf she thought she was doing at that table. The $100s were all the old style too which was weird. Maybe she raided Granny's sock drawer. Anyway she would call with bottom pair for her $100 so anytime I could get isolated with her I just value bet my middle pair and she kept me afloat. After 3.5 hours and no pocket pair I went to take a break. When I came back my friend was in the box and he hit me with pocket 3's first hand. I limped utg and nobody raised but like 6 people limped. The flop is 10,6,3. The small blind bets $15. The big blind raises to $45. I make it $120. The girl who cant play calls her last $95 and it gets back to big blind. He thinks and mucks 10,6. Nobody in that spot shoulda done that. He should figured I had limped with AA hoping for a raise. Thank God he mucked. The turn was another 6 and he woulda got it all. So its me and dumb girl who actually hits her gutshot that she probably didnt know she had on the river but I got a boat so no harm. Instead of stacking off once again to a hand that was way behind (as usual), I actually made a couple hundred due to someones mistake. I say mistake because over time he would make way more money pushing with top two there. Maybe he saw the hand I played 2 weeks ago when I pushed with top pair knowing 100% the guy had an over pair. But I woulda folded my over pair to a reraise so I guess I will never get the satisfaction of being in that position and sucking out. Anyway my buddy hit me with two more pocket pairs of KK and I won a couple more small pots. When he left I left. Im starting to believe in the law of attraction in regards to dealers who want you to do well (maybe because you will throw them a red bird for a $25 pot) and the cards they send you. I think Im gonna start tipping any new dealer who sits as a rule. Get them on my side. Im really starting to believe in metaphysics and the power of the mind to create its own reality. Anyway Im proud I didnt get too crazy when I was card dead trying to pick up pots that were not for sale. Im planning on playing more cards in the next few months so this was a decent start but really probably insignificant to the overall results I will achieve since basically I won an amount that will be wiped out with one single loss of a significant pot. Oh and btw I have talked about not being a very good poker player on this blog so part of my playing more is going to be learning more too. Im getting a coach and reading a lot. I did the leak busters program from my online database the other day. The results were not shocking or unknown but its just part of the process. Also Ive had a lot of highly emotional things go on in my life this last year and I feel like a few weeks ago I made a break through with how I handle my thoughts and emotions and Ive played only 2 sessions since then but I won both. The other one was a going away poker party for a friend and we played .25/.50 and I took $176 profit from that. I wont go into it but I ran like God hit a buncha sets and flopped straights all night. Too bad it was in a micro game with a few friends who only wanted to spend $20 to $40 bucks. But the point is that Im feeling good, Im staying in the moment, and Im not creating bad luck from negative energy (if you believe in that).