So I haven't posted for a while but I have been playing. I have 2 reasons for not posting. First, I had an amazing night 3 nights ago at the tables. I was playing fine but just getting very unlucky - not necessarily bad beat unlucky but more like AA vs KK and I had the KK so I lost my stack. This was happening on 3 of the 4 tables I was playing. But then suddenly I had a good run and was almost even for the night. I was satisfied with only losing a little bit after being down a ton so I turned off all of the "auto-post blinds" checkboxes because I was on my last round at each table. Then the bottom dropped out. In about 20 combined hands at the 4 tables I went right back down to where I was and then kept falling. It was my worst night of poker ever.
After that I had to think long and hard about my game and what I should do to build my bankroll back up. I decided to keep playing the next night because I believe most of my losses were due to plain old bad luck and not bad play on my part (although I did tilt off some of it after I started falling so fast). So for the last 3 nights I've been winning again but it hasn't been easy. I've gotten down most nights and had to stay up late just to get back ahead.
I think that's one of my biggest downfalls - I always believe I can win back the money I've lost if I just keep playing. So sometimes I stay up quite late just to get back even and it rarely works out. I don't think this is a bad attitude to have because it shows I have confidence in my game. But I also need to realize that sometimes I can be playing great but the cards just aren't falling for me so I need to cut my losses and wait for the next night.
My second reason for not posting lately is that I've been staying up so late trying to get a win that I haven't wanted to stay up even later to post an entry here. And then the next day I don't have time to post due to plans for the day.
I guess I have a third reason for not posting lately and that's because I realized I'm mostly posting about significant hands I've played and that probably gets a little boring to read. But it's kind of nice to write about because it helps me think through the hand and how I played it. So I guess I haven't decided exactly what I want to include in this blog and that's what has kept me from posting also.
I do have one thing that I want to mention in this post though. That's the number of complete donkeys I encounter every night at the $2/4 and $3/6 blind levels. My neighbor (who I discuss my play with quite a bit) always comments that these blind levels are pretty high stakes. When I tell him about some of the plays I've seen he's always shocked by the play because he assumed that the caliber of player at this level is so much higher than the level he plays at. In general I would agree with him that most of the players at my tables are better than those at his tables. And that's why I'm surprised by some of these plays also.
For example, at my table last night, a guy in late position does the minimum raise thing (which I hate) and the button calls but the SB folds. I'm in the BB with the all-powerful 53o. I call since I'm getting such incredible pot odds. The flop comes 467 with 2 hearts. I've flopped the bottom end of the straight and decide to slow play since neither of these players have much money so I figure I'll be putting at least one of them all-in on a check-raise. The pre-flop raiser doesn't disappoint and bets 2/3 of the pot. The button calls yet again and I raise enough to put the original better all-in. He calls and the button calls too even though it leaves him with very little left. The turn is a blank so I bet enough to put the button all-in and he calls as expected. The river is a 5 which really pisses me off since I've seen so many people with pocket 8's in this situation who just got really lucky.
Well that wasn't the case this time. The original raiser turned over Qd7d and the button turned over A3o. I ended up splitting the pot with the button. So here's what I'm talking about donkeys. The original minimum pre-flop raiser had a lousy Q7s. If you're going to raise with that hand, why raise so little just to invite action? And then why do you call off all of your chips when you flop top pair with a mediocre kicker? Especially when your top pair is so low. Two donkey moves right there.
And then there's the button's play. I don't mind the pre-flop call since the raise was so little to begin with but it may have been better to re-raise to see if his Ace was any good. But then after the flop, he cold calls a bet of 2/3 pot and all he has is an over card and gutshot straight draw. This is a pretty stupid play but then he makes it worse by calling my big check-raise. Did he actually think he could hit something to win the pot? What could I be check-raising with where he still had a chance and his odds were good enough to take that chance? The only thing I can think of is if I had a flush draw but then I probably would've had the Ace of hearts and my kicker was probably better than his 3. So his only chance of winning the pot outright would be to hit the 5 and hope I didn't have an 8. In addition, he only calls my check-raise instead of re-raising to put his last few chips in. I guess he knew I was going to bet on the turn so he decided to just wait for that. I can't decide which of these 2 is the bigger donkey.
This is the kind of play I see frequently at my tables. And of course there's always the donkey who calls off all of his chips with pocket 3's on a flop of AK6. I can't believe these people play at these blind levels. Are they completely new to the game and they don't realize 2/4 and 3/6 are quite high to start out at? Or do they just have so much money that they don't care? I wish I had that problem.
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