OK, not really, but maybe kind of. Regardless, I really feel like an idiot after Friday. Took a day off work, plus my wife went out with the girls on Friday night, so I had plenty of time for poker, for once. After a round of golf in the morning, I headed over to a card room for some live play. I really like playing live every once in a while, although I think that if I were a live pro, I would grow to hate it. I am not a big multitabler online, but even for me, the pace of play is maddeningly slow. Everyone but me and one other guy was a regular. However, a B&M regular is not the same thing as an online regular...still very loose and pretty passive, especially preflop. However, the rake structure really encourages passive play...as soon as a raise goes in preflop, the entire drop of $5 in a 2-2-3 blind structure gets taken. So, there is virtually no late position open raising. Anyway....
I ran totally cold. I only picked up strong hands a couple times, and those were a cooler and a lost flip...one set under set, and another 2 pair < OESD that got there. As I was getting ready to leave, I picked up MP in the BB vs a guy who had to have trips on a paired flop. I'm OOP, and like a total idiot, I'm value-betting myself out of 30bb or so on a KK9 suited flop. For fuck sake, he's never folding better, only rarely calling worse (for more than one bet), will almost definitely let me show down cheap once I put in a small flop bet unless he has me crushed. Of course, he shows up with K3o, which he limped in 2nd to act 9 handed. This is typical and exactly why you want to play live, but I am a total total donkey. After that hand, I played until it got back to me in the BB and left...I was so tilted at myself for making that play, that I figured it would take me too long to calm down and play with confidence.
I stopped by Chipotle for a steak burrito, a nice mood enhancer :). Then I headed back to the golf club (using their wireless network) to check in quickly with work and maybe play a little session before heading home.
Right now, I'm just above my bankroll threshold for playing 1/2, so what I do is select the best tables I can find across .50/1 and 1/2, rather than sticking with one limit. I used to not like doing that (mixing limits in a session), but I don't mind it so much now. So, I'm not sure how many BB I won, but I had a nice session where I focused on playing solid and just about recouped the loss from my live play. It was one of those sessions where there were no coolers or suckouts either way, and the results were good. Not to sound too much like Phil Hellmuth, but it was nice that when everything is kind of standard (low variance, I guess), I came out ahead.
After the kids went to sleep, I played another session. I don't know why...my Friday night record sucks big time. This time, though, it was a lot my fault. Once again -- and I've written about this before, but am having a really hard time breaking my bad habits -- I tried pushing a guy off a marginal hand. My hand reading is getting a lot better...I knew pretty much what he had. My people reading remains stubbornly shitty...I thought I could make him fold it. His hand was actually worse than I thought; he was willing to stack off with a middle pocket pair for 175 BB. Give him credit, though, because I was willing to bluff him off it. The thing is, he's the wrong guy to bluff...36/24/something aggressive postflop. This guy is going to gamble. I called in position on the flop with a gutshot+back door flush draw precisely because my implied odds were so good if I could just hit, and we were deep. But you can't have it both ways! If you're playing to stack the donkey when you hit your hand, you can't also play to bluff the donkey off his hand when you miss! Ugh!
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