Even Good Players Can Play Like Donkies Sometimes

Man, last night I was having such a good time. Playing well, reading right, making good decisions. And then I lost my focus a bit, misread a couple of new players to the table, and in the space of three hands pissed away nine hours of profitable chip building. I had played steady and strong all afternoon and evening and had built up my chip stack to $650 after having lost my first $120 buy-in and seen my $80 rebuy down to a low of $57. At that point I had a good double up and was able to aggressively work my way up to that comfortable stack size.

So then a new player comes to the table and I attempted to use my stack to bully him off a hand with a preflop raise, a strong continuation bet on the flop and then pushing the last of his chips in on the turn. He looked really nervous to me and he was obviously a new player as he was uncomfortable putting that much money into the pot and took a long time getting it in there. When I saw his cards I knew he was a new player because even though he had turned the nut set he was still scared to get his money into the pot. My bluff cost me $120 on that hand.

The next hand had me in the small blind with 8-5 suited and only one other player besides myself and the big blind saw the flop, which was 3-5-3. I bet out $5, big blind raised to $20 and the other player folded. Now this player was also a new-ish player and this should have been my warning bell. A new player will not raise into someone with as many chips as I had and a comfortable table presence like I present. I should have known that he had a three, but my mind was still on the previous hand and like a donkey, I called. The turn was the worst card possible for me... an eight, giving me top two. The guy had about $60 in front of him so I pushed him all-in and he calls with 3-9 and to add salt to the wound spikes a nine on the river.

A short while after that, I have 9-10 suited on the button and call a $10 pre-flop raise along with four others. The flop is 2-5-9 with two of my suit. The lady in the small blind puts in $50 and the other two players fold. Again, I'm making a decision against a short stack and I should have known she had me beat, but with top pair and a flush draw, could I really have gotten away with it? She has about $100 behind her $50 so I say, "Well, if this hand keeps going, you're going to bet all of it anyway, so let's get it over with right now," and I throw out six green chips. She didn't like that at all, and for a second, I thought she might actually fold, but after a minute of wavering she calls and shows me A-9. I get no more help and she actually spikes an ace on the turn so I'm out another hundred and sixty-odd bucks.

Well, that pretty much shot my moral, I was tired and there wasn't much play time left so I packed up and went home with only $80 profit to show for eleven hours of playtime.

On another note, the little flash ad you see at the top of the blog is for the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which is the most earth-shattering, astounding, jaw-dropping movie I think I have ever seen in my life. I encourage everyone to see it, and act on its advice, as soon as possible. It will change the way you view the world.