Sigh

Another crappy night of poker last night. Sometimes I think I really should give up the dream but then I have a good run and I'm right back at it. And sometimes I really feel lost when I'm playing. Last night it felt like I couldn't win no matter what cards I held.

I think I need to stop playing the capped games because I've been getting killed by the gamblers lately. Last night I lost well over half of my money at just one table and I played at about 6 different tables (but no more than 4 at once). I lost to the same player last night 3 times in a row when I had an overpair to the board or top pair and my opponent had flopped a set. This guy was so unbelievably lucky it was sick.

I'm also experiencing a lot of check-raises lately and I'm feeling lost as to how to combat this problem. It generally goes something like this: I have AK and raise the size of the pot before the flop. I get one caller usually from one of the blinds. The flop comes 972 rainbow and the caller checks to me. I make a continuation bet of about 2/3 pot since my hand is probably still good here and I get check raised to 3 times my bet.

Unless I have some sort of draw or I know my opponent is tricky, I almost always fold here. I just don't have a clue what else to do but I feel like I'm giving up a lot. It also concerns me that other players see this action and decide to bluff at me with this play. I don't know if that is actually happening but sometimes it feels like it.

Thankfully I made a decent comeback at the end of the night to cut my losses in half. And it took a major suckout just to do that. I had pocket tens and raised pre-flop. The player to my right was the only caller. The flop came off J93 with 2 hearts. I bet about the size of the pot and he raised the minimum. Generally this means he's on a draw (probably a flush draw in this case). I called and the turn brought a 6 (not a heart). I checked and he bet the size of the pot.

This is another instance where I feel a little lost. He could be on a draw. He could have called my pre-flop raise with AJ and flopped top pair or he could just be bluffing because he's seen it work against me. At this point I was pretty pissed from losing so much on the night that I pushed all-in. He called immediately and turned over pocket queens. I was crushed until the river brought a beautiful ten. So for once I sucked out and delivered the bad beat.

After nights like this I really think I need to buy some training videos from CardRunners.com or CardPlayer Pro. The cost is probably less than I would lose anyway.