I played in two cash games this past weekend, one on Friday night and one on Saturday night. At the game Friday night, not only did I lose the entirety of my original buy-in, I bought in AGAIN, lost all that and then bought in a THIRD TIME (I managed to break even on that buy-in). My humiliation the next day knew no bounds, even though I was patted and hugged repeatedly by my fellow player and reassured that yes, I am still lovable even when I sucked the hairy butt cheese at poker.
Never say I can’t learn from my mistakes, though! Saturday night, not only did I not buy in after my original chip purchase that night, by the time we left the game, I had tripled up. Self-esteem was RESTORED!
Lessons Learned!
1. No matter how good that wine is tasting, stop drinking it at the first sign of a serious buzz and switch to something with caffeine.
2. No matter how big a donkey you know someone is, do not call his insane overbet unless you have the kind of nuts that can’t be sucked out on on the river.
3. Some nights you are just not going to catch many hands, and the few hands you catch are not going to hit. It happens. Accept that you are probably not going to win big that night, and don’t try to compensate for that by playing a bunch of little crappy hands. Rather than minimizing your losses, you are basically opening up a chip artery for the rest of the table to feast upon.
4. Even when you are way down in chips, don’t limp in with your good hands. Rather than minimizing your losses, all you are doing is allowing someone else the chance to suck out on you big time, because if you hit or dominate on the flop, you won’t be able to bring yourself to lay them down. If you resist the urge to do #3, you will have enough chips to properly play your A-K, A-Q, A-Js, K-Qs, and pocket 10′s and higher. NOTE: Playing your good hands hard pre-flop does sometimes result in you winning nothing but the blinds, especially if you are known to be a tight player. Accept this. It’s better to win the blinds than to lose half to all your stack because someone called your puny little preflop bet and then sucked out on you.
5. When pot odds say fold, then you fold. I don’t care if you haven’t won a hand for the past three HOURS, you fold. The cards do not care that you haven’t won a hand in three hours and they will not take that into account when they are dealt out onto the table. Chasing is for donkeys and monster stacks, and should still be a seldom event even for the latter.
Friday night highlights:
There weren’t any.
Saturday night highlights:
A-Q. Raised 3x blind preflop, got four callers. Flop was Q-little card-little card, two clubs. Bet the pot, got one caller. Turn was little card, not a club. Bet the pot again, got the same caller. River was little card, possibly making a straight, but not an obvious one, also not a club. Lost nerve due to possible straight and checked, caller checked. Won BIG time.
Q-3 on the big blind, nobody raised preflop and every single player except one limped in. Flop was A-3-3. Bet the pot, tragically nobody had an ace, so no callers. But those big blind specials are STILL treasured moments! (They don’t come my way too often.)
Loving the poker updates, LKS.
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