Downswinging

So I'll have to take a break. I've been losing so much I've stopped believing I can win. Time to do more thinking, less playing, until I feel better about taking them on again.

I am barely breakeven in the past 100 games, and that's no good. Some of it is down to weak play -- after all, I don't think I'm a great player by any stretch -- but sometimes nothing you try works. I get in ahead and they suck out, and I never pull it out from behind.

In my games today, I have pushed A2 over a limper with K9 and he calls and hits the K; pushed J7 from the small blind when very short and got called by 84, he flopped an 8; ran AQ into a limped (!) AK and then when I next picked up a hand, TT, someone else had woken up with KK; hit a straight heads up but the other guy had turned a flush with his 52s; pushed 88 over a limper, and AQ was not worth a raise but worth calling an allin -- what on earth are these clowns thinking? best case he's a race, worst he's dominated and all but gone; gambled with AKs against two allins after I had raised a minraiser, but they had KK and QQ! You know, everyone else can gamble but if I make any play not in the textbook I get hammered. Yesterday, a loose player called my raise with A8. The flop came K high. I cbet and he called. The turn was a second king and I pushed. This is on the bubble and he's busted if he calls and loses. So you figure he will only call with a king and I'm certain he doesn't have one (he would checkraise the flop with it). He calls with AJ. He has nothing. No pair. Not even a draw. Just ace high. I need only have paired and he's going home. You can argue that my play was too aggressive, which maybe it was, or that you shouldn't bluff a calling station (although he'd laid down hands before to a lot of pressure, he'd also called with nothing).

And Arleen? Don't panic. When I say I've been losing a lot, I mean games not money. It's only about 50 bucks. But when you've been winning easily, losing is really painful, even if in money terms, it's not very much.

***

And you know, when things are bad, they're really bad. Second hand of an sng. I limp from MP with JJ. Couple of other limpers. The BB raises 100. This is very rarely anything great, usually AJ or a pair. So when EP calls, I have an easy push. BB calls with 55.

He flops a 5.

You know, you'd think the poker gods would punish him for calling an allin with 55 when he cannot possibly be better than a race.

So on another table I pick up KT in the BB and check. The flop is T high. I bet, a player I know to be very weak and prone to playing weak hands aggressively raises. I call the raise. The turn is another ten. I check, allowing him to bluff. He checks behind. The river makes a flush, but that doesn't worry me. If he had a backdoor flush draw, that's just poker. So I bet out nicely, he raises and I push.

He also has KT.

You know you're fucked when you cannot make value with your decent hands. They just don't come often enough to miss out on.

But it got worse, right?

Yes, right.

I have AA. A loose guy with a shortish stack limps at t30. I raise to 100. The SB and the loose guy call. The flop comes Ts5s2d. The SB bets out. The loose guy pushes. I push over the top. The other guy has to call 1600 to win 3000. He has the flush draw, so he takes the worst of it.

But at the moment, you are not taking the worst of it if you gamble against me.

9s2s in the money. Flop comes Ks8s2d. I bet out and some guy who has me covered pushes. I instacall. I have 14 outs against top pair so with the dead money this is an easy call. I know the player and he doesn't have better than top pair when he does this.

Note that when I have an overpair, the flush draw -- just a flush draw -- who did not have the odds to call got lucky. But when I call exactly even money, with pot odds favouring the call, not a sniff.