Most. Frustrating. Session. Ever

Still pretty pissed off about last night's session, so will keep it brief.
Joined a table, found out it was quite aggressive.
Lost a little but adapted my game, tightened up and was slowly increasing my stack again.

#Game No : 6303999019
***** Hand History for Game 6303999019 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Thursday, September 06, 14:14:42 ET 2007
Table Table 125858 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 2: ksgv111 ( $1.86 USD )
Seat 4: epikor ( $1.84 USD )
Seat 6: StefanWuijts ( $5.24 USD )
Seat 9: LuLu5777 ( $3.46 USD )
Seat 10: sooldsogood ( $4.93 USD )
Seat 3: e_r_c ( $3.84 USD )
Seat 5: winny88 ( $2.92 USD )
Seat 7: Europa180g ( $4.94 USD )
Seat 1: pairof_aces ( $2 USD )
Seat 8: magic_hand89 ( $2.50 USD )
ksgv111 posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
e_r_c posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Kh Kc ]
winny88 calls [$0.04 USD]
StefanWuijts calls [$0.04 USD]
Europa180g calls [$0.04 USD]
LuLu5777 folds
ksgv111 calls [$0.02 USD]
e_r_c raises [$0.20 USD]
winny88 calls [$0.20 USD]
StefanWuijts calls [$0.20 USD]
Europa180g calls [$0.20 USD]
ksgv111 folds
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5d, Jd, 5h ]
e_r_c bets [$0.72 USD]
winny88 is all-In [$2.68 USD]
StefanWuijts folds
Europa180g folds
e_r_c calls [$1.96 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4s ]
** Dealing River ** [ 7s ]
e_r_c shows [ Kh, Kc ]two pairs, Kings and Fives.
winny88 shows [ 7d, 7h ]a full house, Sevens full of Fives.
winny88 wins $6.05 USD from the main pot with a full house, Sevens full of Fives.
StefanWuijts: WOW suckout
e_r_c: every goddamn time

Was dealt KK, raised preflop and got a few callers. The flop came 5-J-5. I bet and got moved in on. Thought for a bit and put him on two pair, so called.
He turned over Sevens, I'd got him trapped. Only 2 cards in the pack could save him.
Nothing to help on the Turn.
Then comes the river, and another fucking Seven drops. All of my money except for $0.90 gets pushed over to the idiot.
I know this shouldn't bother me, and that the odds were 11.5:1 against him. Which means we play that hand over again a few times and I'm going to bankrupt him over and over. But twice in two sessions I've been sucked out on like that, and it chafes.

I didn't rebuy because I thought I'd probably not be thinking properly after that. Managed to waver around the $1-2 mark for a while, then threw it all away on a silly bluff when my tea was ready! I do still have a bit of a fatalistic mentality when I drop below $2, I get like I need to win big or crash out, can't just walk away with that meagre amount. Which is ridiculous really, and will add up to quite a lot of unnecessary lost money over time.

some good (and some very bad) play

Had another session Wednesday night (I'm trying to play as much as possible at the moment), and again I was amazed at how often people will surrender their hands to a bet. Looking back through my hand history, all but two of the hands that I won are by the opponent folding. I even stole a hand at the river when I couldn't even beat the board! (the five community cards were all better than my two).
By playing like this, I've moved from basically dribbling away blinds until I make a good hand, to actually slowly increasing my stack. I won't lie and say that I was making a huge profit, but given that that was achieved generally while holding nothing more than a high card or 2nd pair and a handful of unlikely outs, often less, it's quite heartening.
Sadly, I decided to throw the modest profit I'd made and about half my original stack away with an absolutely awfully played hand. I really have no excuses for how I played it, it was terrible, terrible play. If not for me getting lucky with a straight draw towards the end of the session, I would have ended it around $2.50 down. My folly, and the redeeming straight, are shown below:

#Game No : 6301371362
***** Hand History for Game 6301371362 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, September 05, 16:07:45 ET 2007
Table Table 131166 (Real Money)
Seat 9 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 9: Westmalle69 ( $5.60 USD )
Seat 6: e_r_c ( $5.06 USD )
Seat 8: ankass ( $2.70 USD )
Seat 10: pimsous ( $5.04 USD )
Seat 7: Laribum78 ( $1.92 USD )
Seat 2: danidash88 ( $3.34 USD )
Seat 3: kostmann ( $4.66 USD )
Seat 4: Zwabber777 ( $5.97 USD )
Seat 5: jole48 ( $2.21 USD )
Seat 1: thed4rk1982 ( $5.94 USD )
pimsous posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
thed4rk1982 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Th Ts ]
danidash88 calls [$0.04 USD]
kostmann folds
Zwabber777 folds
jole48 folds
e_r_c raises [$0.16 USD]
Laribum78 folds
ankass folds
Westmalle69 folds
pimsous raises [$0.42 USD]
thed4rk1982 folds
danidash88 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.28 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9h, 3c, 4d ]
pimsous bets [$1.04 USD]
e_r_c raises [$2.08 USD]
pimsous is all-In [$3.56 USD]
e_r_c folds
pimsous does not show cards.
pimsous wins $7.39 USD

I really can't justify my actions, or even point to what I was attempting in that hand. It should have been obvious that he had a big pair or AK and wasn't going to drop it to a push. When no Ten hit on the flush I should have just folded. Instead I decided to donate him $2 for no appreciable reason.


#Game No : 6301404072
***** Hand History for Game 6301404072 *****
$5 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Wednesday, September 05, 16:15:12 ET 2007
Table Table 131166 (Real Money)
Seat 8 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 9: Westmalle69 ( $5.36 USD )
Seat 6: e_r_c ( $2.38 USD )
Seat 8: ankass ( $2.64 USD )
Seat 10: pimsous ( $7.23 USD )
Seat 2: danidash88 ( $5.79 USD )
Seat 3: kostmann ( $4.60 USD )
Seat 4: Zwabber777 ( $5.79 USD )
Seat 5: jole48 ( $2.29 USD )
Seat 1: thed4rk1982 ( $5.88 USD )
Westmalle69 posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
pimsous is sitting out
thed4rk1982 posts big blind [$0.04 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to e_r_c [ Qs Ts ]
pimsous has left the table.
danidash88 folds
kostmann folds
Zwabber777 folds
jole48 folds
e_r_c calls [$0.04 USD]
ankass folds
Westmalle69 calls [$0.02 USD]
thed4rk1982 checks
** Dealing Flop ** [ Kc, 3s, 2h ]
Westmalle69 checks
thed4rk1982 bets [$0.12 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.12 USD]
Westmalle69 calls [$0.12 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Jh ]
Westmalle69 bets [$0.30 USD]
thed4rk1982 calls [$0.30 USD]
e_r_c calls [$0.30 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ As ]
Westmalle69 checks
thed4rk1982 checks
e_r_c is all-In [$1.92 USD]
Westmalle69 folds
thed4rk1982 calls [$1.92 USD]
thed4rk1982 shows [ Ah, 5d ]a pair of Aces.
e_r_c shows [ Qs, Ts ]a straight Ten to Ace.
e_r_c wins $4.96 USD from the main pot with a straight, Ten to Ace.

So, I didn't really have too much at the flop, basically anything would have been runner, runner (straight,flush, or a pair or combination of Queens/Tens) but I called it thinking I'd see if anything helped the flush/straight draws. The Jack on the turn nixed the flush draw, but gave me an open-ended straight draw on any Ace or Nine. The pot odds probably didn't justify calling the turn bet, but I reckoned I was gonna push all-in if I hit and it would probably look like a steal attempt. In came the Ace, I moved in and took a rather nice pot, to the amazement of the other two players.

Some (slighty expensive) experimentation

This is a week of experimentation for me. After a weekend visiting friends, suffering a courageous defeat in the first round of our poker night, and borrowing Doyle Brunson's Super System from Steve, I was in the mood to try mixing up my play style a little.

So, Monday night I put in a fairly long session, trying out a more agressive style, including trying to pick-up the smaller pots with a bet when I thought people were unsure on the strength of their hand. I also tried to play two tables at once for the first time. This was for a couple of reasons - I'd considered multi-tabling before as I means to stop myself getting bored and playing marginal hands just for some action, and also I'd received a $20 bonus from PartyPoker on condition of making a certain of party points by the 14th and I thought two tables would help build them up a bit faster.

So, a few different things that I tried, all of which added up to a fairly meaty $15 loss! A third of that was admittedly just on getting sucked out on with all my money in the pot while holding a pair of Aces. The other cretin was holding QQ, and called me on a rags flop with no flush or straight draws for him, only to hit a Q on the river! That doesn't account for the rest of the money I threw away though.

Looking back I think the following things were wrong with my play:

1. I carried over the very loose play of the weekend's poker game to the cash tables


2. Playing multiple tables is a bad idea if you're playing more hands than usual, because then most of the time you're splitting your attention across both tables at once


3. Putting in bets to steal the pots did work a surprising amount of times, but then when I got called or raised against I was far too reluctant to drop the money I'd already put in - not a good combination


4. Because I was splitting my attention I kept rushing some of my decisions without properly considering my opponent's potential hand / outs

So, all in all not an auspicious start to a new playing style, but I persevered and played another session last night. This time I played just one table again (I looked at the amount of party points I picked up from my lengthy double table session and realised that making the points requirement for the bonus was pretty much impossible without taking the rest of the week off, or jumping up to a higher level table, which I'm nowhere near ready to do!) and I reduced the number of hands that I played in the first place. And, it worked pretty well, ending the session up by $4.70.
I really am appreciating the pick-up tactic, I've been taking down a good number of small pots, and even managed to win some fairly big hands by representing a flush or a straight.

So, feeling good again about my game overall, despite having another $10 to earn to make up for Monday's experiment! The only way is up!*





*DISCLAIMER: Poker winnings may go down as well as up.