Taking Punishing Blows

Loss: $17

Poker is continuing to have it's evil wicked way with me at the moment.

As stated in previous blogs, life variance is preventing me from playing much at the moment anyway, but when I do I'm getting drilled for every action I do. Whether I get unlucky or make a stupid mistake it's always costing me a large amount, if not all, of my stack.

I played on Wednesday and had a flopped flush get beaten by a better flopped flush, KK V AA and set under set. That lost cost me a buy in and a half. After 200 hands of excellent recovery play I pulled it back to to even par, then I made some terrible mistakes.

I raised with 86 in the cutoff and got min-reraised by AQ. No problems, I don't mind playing a pot in position with this holding. Flop comes 862. I call his weak beat because I know he needs to catch up. Turn is a queen. At that point I need to raise his 1/2 pot bet because I know he's starting to get interested in the hand. River is an Ace and he instantly bets pot and instantly my head says AQ, but I can't fold and I donate 60bb to him. Tit.

I did a couple more like that afterwards so ended half a buyin down for the session.

But the real cherry on the proverbial has been the 45 minute session I've just enjoyed. Found some very juicy tables on Betfair and found myself with AAs. As regular readers will know I usually shove with these preflop as my Poker Tracker stats tells me it's the most profitable way to play them on microstakes rooms. But I want action so I raise 7xbb knowing I'll get a caller. I get two but no worries because the flop is 33J. One get guy bets about pot, the other calls and I shove. Both call for a $24(ish) pot. The shortstack caller has 22 while the full stacker has JQ. Turn brings the Jack of course and I have to suck my thumb.

This seemed to tilt me no end and I think I was aware of this because I rebought for only $3. A little later another maniac calls my 30bb shove on a JXX board. I have KJ and he has AJ. Fair enough. This is what I would call a situational setup. I was tilted and rebought for a small amount. Of course with a large stack I would never get all my chips in with KJ but I have no room for maneuver so I ship against the one hand in his range I think he has that beats me. Natch.

Knowing I was tilting I was preparing to quit when another hand comes up with a maniac. I have J10 and he has J4 (yeah, yeah, raise preflop, but this guy called in the cutoff with it). Flop is JJ4. He's betting every street in every hand so I hope for him to hang himself when the K hits on the turn. And with $2.7 in the pot he shoves for $5 which just smells of a bluffer firing all streets and then trying to buy the pot. And even if he isn't I beat a lot of hands. But of course, he has the flopped boat.

I'm not going to say it's just the cards doing me over at the moment because there's commentary in those hands that I'm disgusted. It just seems at the moment that I'm suffering the reverse of how I usually run: make a big score and then take ages running 30-50% of it off. Now I seem to be suffering a massive drop before spending ages recovering 30-50% of it. And with all the underpinning moans about having no gambling balls and my grinding tendencies, I'm pissed off again. I've barely even played!

Not sure when I'll play again. I'd like to think it will be sometime this weekend but it's more likely I'll sleep on today's events and tomorrow I will think so myself: why bother playing to get punched in the face again?

The one action I did take is remove my roll from Betfair. I had ran it up from $7 to $127 before taking today's $20 hit. The software is hopeless for multitabling. I've left £10 in which I might use for a bit of harmless sports betting.

Long term poker plans though? No idea. Just haven't got the time nor the inclination.

Oh and for people who have sent me comments for site link-ups..... sorted.