Never let your guard down.

Loss: $16

After a pretty rough week of my new job in teaching I needed to unwind. Playing poker probably isn't the best thing to try to 'unwind', but I did so nonetheless and I quickly got a dose of the hard truth: if you drop your pants, even for a split second, poker will take its chance and bite you in the balls.

I'd been playing for about an hour and had been completely card dead, and I mean card dead. I hadn't picked up anything better than two pair in over an hour of play and I was a buyin down. I wasn't pissed off. In fact I was pretty content at the thought that I'd only lost a small amount despite having absolutely nothing to play with.

Then I got KK and decided to slowplay them. A multitude of recipes all cooked up into once nice brothy stew of stomach-wrenching pain.

I raised pot before the flop and found myself staring at a flop of J23 with three people in the pot. Usually I'd bet the flop hard and be happy to either take down whatever I could in the pot or crush someone with AJ. Instead, out of position, I decided to check. The turn is a 4 so I decide to bet to see if anyone has a gutshot with an ace in their hand. One player folds, the other raises about 20bb. Rather stupidly I decided to push, convincing myself the other guy had AJ or 1010 or something rather shit. Turns out he had the old 56 and I was drawing dead. It's not often I do that, but here's an rare example so make a note: I was very tired from work, I was bored from crap cards and probably tilted from crap cards, I made a zero play (I'm only ever going to get called by stuff that crushes me) without putting the correct thought processes into action and suffered the ultimate consequences - being stacked.

And whenever I do get it all in behind and lose I doth my cap and say 'nh' because I've been outplayed. Or in this instance I completely outplayed myself. Poker has no emotions, it doesn't care what sort of day you've had at work or what sort of session you're having now. If you lose your concentration, lose your nerve and lose you ability to think the way you know how and should, poker will remind you, in its own inimitable way, why you shouldn't. I have no one to blame, no cards to shout out, no players to criticise, I just got it wrong.

In the grand context of my poker novel this is but a minor setback. The proverbial car engine breaking down in the middle of the desert which allows the protagonists to get to know each other a bit better while they work together to repair the broken machinery. I hope I know poker a little better after this. If I'd followed my emotional read and quit a few hands earlier I would have halved my losses ($20) for the session. It's something I've never paid enough attention to: shifting tables, shifting sites and ending sessions early when my heart and mind have gone from the endeavour.

I've made mistakes and I'll make many more as I continue to play, but that's what any journey is all about. It's not the result that matters, it's the jounrey there that makes us who we are.

Am I waffling now? Yes I am.

My theraphy for this setback was to go out and buy a Nintendo Wii. It's funny how a silly $10 loss can bite at me for a whole day while the £230 purchase of something I don't need and shouldn't buy doesn't phase my thoughts. What is it about poker that causes me to shit bricks at the thought of losing any money? If I could answer that I'd either be bust or playing proferssionally by now.

Although, thinking about it, poker may be the exception. The final result is pretty sweet.