Don't. Play. Tired.

I make this mistake periodically, and the circumstances were the same last night. Haven't played much in the last few days, but have been thinking a fair amount about the game, chatting with some folks, etc. I wanted to play, wanted to try a couple things out, wanted to focus on one specific area (in this case it was getting out of RIO situations better). I had some work to finish, Sports Center just started when I finished, so I fired up Full Tilt, even though I was pretty tired. (I don't even know why I leave the TV on, since I am good about not focusing on it...probably just to mask the constant beep when it's my turn to act.)

Usually, a little tired is no problem. I keep up with the tables pretty well, and I'm used to doing a lot of stuff a little tired anyway, just a fact of life. But I misjudged last night, and sure enough ended up in 2 pots for stacks where I completely botched any sort of range analysis, and just went into like a level 1, or maybe 1.5, level thinking mode.

In one hand, I had pretty decent showdown value and a good draw, and the pot wasn't huge, and I went for a CRAI on the turn rather than a better play of a blocker bet allowing me to get away if he pushed on a scary board. Here I lost the max, and probably was going to win the least.

In another hand, I screwed up preflop and dug myself deeper postflop. I was in steal position with AJ, and an aggressive BB (33/25, fold BB to steal 50%) 3-bet me. I was playing too LAG, IMO, and 4-bet light. By his stats, he was probably 3-betting light, but there was no table history, and I think the first time he does this I can give him credit and get away. But I 4-bet instead. That's not an awful mistake based on his stats, but it's not a good play, at least not for me, until I get a little more comfortable in reraised pots. Flop is KQx, and it goes check-check. When he checks the turn too, I decide I have enough fold equity to push, which wasn't even a PSB. I think that I should have just checked behind and hoped to hit...yes I can fold out an underpair, but the board just hits a lot of his range, given no history between us, and he just calling my 4-bet. He snap-called QQ, but that's not the point...it was a bad play due to bad judgment.

It's too bad, because there were a number of hands that I played well, and lost the minimum on a couple trap hands. But those two pots I stacked off ruined an otherwise solid session. One thing that didn't occur to me was that if I really wanted to play, just to try something out that I've been thinking about, or whatever, there's no shame dropping a couple levels down. But more than that, I should have been more aware exactly how tired I was, and passed up on playing altogether.