Black muddy river, roll on forever

Continuing to play an OK game, but unable to garner much momentum. Played 976 hands last night, running at (6.96) ptbb/100 :(. This was punctuated by a 68/15 monkey who stayed with me as a table broke up, and then continually pwned me HU for a couple buy-ins over like 40 hands.

I don't really play much HU and so I probably spewed a bit even before he got well into his hot streak. When he called my PFR with 93o, and took me for half a stack when the flop came A33 early in our HU match, I should have known I was in for it! The only thing was he actually folded a couple times after that. I mean, if you're going to call 93o, there are not that many hands left to fold!

I got coolered for 30BB when my AQ flopped top two, but lost to a set of 5's. I had another big loss (below) for just over a stack. Without these big setbacks, I would have won quite handily. But, you are going to get in games with huge edges and lose, you are going to get coolered sometimes, and there are also the various mistakes that we recognize only after the fact, and hope that by diligent review and study, we make less in the future.

The other big hand, I got stacked for 106BB with QQ against a 36/3/4.8 villain who limp/called OTB. He calls my c-bet on a T83 rainbow flop, then min-raises on a turned 7 that puts a flush draw out there. He's been limping then pushing hard postflop, but no one has stood up to him. I thought slowplayed set or possibly J9s, but then again he's been so aggro that he's (semi) bluffing a lot and probably pushes his TP hands too hard as well. So, I put him in, figuring if he is on a draw, he's priced in, and won't pay off on the river if he misses. He had J9 (offsuit....nice limp/call there, buddy). Before I could congratulate him on his play, he left the table :).

That hand (and session) illustrates a number of things about how things are going right now:

1. Monkeys get there against me....a lot. I pay them off. I'm not sure whether I pay them off too much.
2. Related....at 50NL, I play overpairs somewhat like the nuts against bad LAG opponents. I'm not sure if I am making the classic low level donkey mistake of overvaluing them. It's easy to think so when you lose and easy to think you play them correctly when you win with them (and I've won a number of big pots in similar situations).
3. I am not playing on autopilot. This is good. I'm trying to justify my actions and my plans to myself (sometimes out loud if no one is around). This is also good.
4. I believe that I am considering the correct factors, or at least the ones I'm considering are good ones to consider. This is good. I am not as sure whether I am making the correct assumptions, however. This is not so good. First, I might really be wrong, and so no matter how good my subsequent thinking is, I'm doomed. Garbage in, garbage out. Also, this is probably one of the big things undermining my confidence.

That last point...knowing what to do based on your assumptions, but your assumptions being incorrect, is a little like being totally book smart, but unable to function in the real world. Everyone knows those really intelligent-but-clueless people. And if you don't, you can see them on sitcoms. That's kind of me in poker -- a little more intelligent in general, and I could probably pull it off in the rest of my life, too, LOL. Anyway, I can jump into any theory type discussion with a lot of confidence. I've read, and I think understood, a ton of different poker books. I can give you a pretty good explanation of reverse implied odds and pot equity vs. pot odds, but I don't know when the heck I'm ahead or behind in a hand, or I'll start to be a level 2 thinker playing against a level 0 opponent.

Now, to be honest, this still puts me pretty far ahead of the typical 50NL monkey and probably the typical 100NL monkey. At least I think it does, and so I remain confident overall. Not that I think I'm a poker expert or anything, but I'm pretty sure I'm past the beginner's stage there.

The good thing is that your assumptions that go into a decision can get better solely with experience, if you're paying attention. The process of figuring out what to do with that information...to make better plans and decisions...doesn't just come with experience...you really need to work on thinking a lot of that through, and not everyone who plays a lot of hands and gets their assumptions correct will put in the additional time that they need in order to get better at the decision making process. It's hard, and it's not necessarily rewarded in the short term, either.