Inconsistent betting patterns

Although I haven't been finding a ton of time for poker, I've been pretty diligent reviewing the sessions that I so play.  I've noticed that I still have a tendency to under-size my bets, especially on the later streets.  Betting too little can be just as bad as calling too loosely; either way, your bottom line suffers.  The insidious part about betting too little is that it's a little more hidden.  Your stats don't get affected enough to notice, so you really have to dig through hands to figure out that you bet too little, or have someone review you.

The strange thing is that as I'm reviewing sessions, most of the time, my bet sizes seem pretty good, but then for no apparent reason, I'll have some small bets scattered in the session.  I'm trying to figure out what makes me inconsistent, as well as what just makes me bet small in the first place. 

My gut reaction is that I'm playing with a little too much fear.  I'm rolled well and table select well enough to feel like I have an edge when I sit, so it's not those things that would be scaring me.  It might be that I'm afraid to make a big mistake.  Not that I like it, but I don't really mind terribly getting stacked when it's a clear cooler or beat, but I hate the thought that I could be making a big mistake.  I want to be good enough to not make big mistakes. 

For instance, I played a hand recently where I ended up stacking off KK.  I raised UTG and TAG calls in SB.  Flop was Q22dd that he c/c.  Turn was an offsuit 9 that he c/r.  He shoved river which was an offsuit 4. 

Of course he could have a boat, but if he's at  all capable of overplaying AQ or bluffing JdTd, then it's going to be close one way or the other.  The feeling I had when he showed QQ was quite disproportionate to the mistake I made.

Hopefully, writing about it will reinforce my focus on making more confident bets and realizing more value.

Stars not aligned

I was probably too tired to play last night, but I went ahead and did it because I just have not been able to get the hands in.  For me, it's one of the perils of being a very part-time player:  when the opportunity presents itself to play, I'm probably going to play, even if I know it will be hard to play an A game.  Kind of like when it's raining out and I go play golf anyway, or skiing in a blizzard, I guess.  I just don't have enough time where taking a pass is better than playing under sub-optimal conditions.  I know from a strictly monetary standpoint, I'd be better off to play way lower, or instead of playing to watch a video or analyze a regular, or something.  But since I still actually enjoy playing, I get in the game when my edge, if it's there at all, is small.  I don't make that choice all the time, but at least now when I do, it's with awareness.

As my VPIP and PFR have climbed from the 19/16 to the 25/21 range, I notice that I'm getting more action, although I'm not sure how well I'm reacting to it.  A TAG 3-bet my CO open from the SB with K5s, which I definitely wouldn't put in a TAG's range..but if he sees I'm stealing very wide, I suppose it's reasonable.  I also got a lot of action from another TAG-bordering-on-nit who had 99 on a K85 flop in a raised pot who obviously didn't give me credit for having a king.

Unfortunately, neither of those went my way, although I made the 2nd hand significantly worse than it should have been on the river when he spiked and led.  I also lost 4 AIPF flips, but those hands kind of play themselves, I just got unlucky with them.  It wasn't enough to stem the tide, but on the one big pot I won, I did have another TAG willing to get AIPF with me for 160bb when he had AK (my AA held).

The only other big hand that I lost and felt really bad about was when a TAG who had position on me but had not really tangled with me yet 3-bet my HJ open from CO.  He only had a 5% 3-bet over a large sample, but from a stats and winrate view was very solid.  I just called the 3-bet with JJ, looking for a non A/K flop, which I got, something like 964 two-tone.  The thing is that unless shown otherwise, I should not think he is going to play for stacks with a worse hand than mine, but instead I way-overplayed my hand checkraising him AI on a blank turn.  There's no way he calls with a worse hand.

The big problem for me being tired is that the flips, coolers, and beats I had taken earlier in the session get to me way more than usual.  If I'm not tired, those things don't bug me nearly as much as they used to.  And I'm sure that I was steaming nice and hot before and during that hand.  But that hand also kind of bitch-slapped me back to the moment, and I bore down, dropped a table, and played OK from then on out, for the most part, even when again some bad luck came my way.  After I convinced myself that I'd kind of righted my emotional ship, I shut it down, and watched an episode of 24 before calling it a night.  But that allowed me to take a couple silver linings from an otherwise brutal session:

• I was able to control myself eventually, even under what were for me challenging conditions.  I think that's an important life-skill, not just limited to poker.  The goal is to not even have the one big slip-up, but like I said, I was looking for silver linings ;).
• Results-wise, after throwing out the flips and beats, I did quite well, which is nice to see as I would like to be able to continue applying increased aggression.  I have a long way to go there, but I don't want to over-adjust myself into spewville, a place I've certainly visited enough already.

Slow going

Life-wise things are going great.  Poker, it's been going fine, except I'm just getting in so few hands.  In the last few weeks, in addition to work and little league which have been busy, I've had:  wife's birthday, son's birthday, niece's birthday, anniversary, Mother's Day, school fundraiser (helping and attending), which have been great, but also have pretty much consumed nights and weekends.

In the few hands I have played, I've really been focusing on turn aggression, to the point that I'm maybe overdoing it (Turn AF is 4.50 in my last few thousand hands, which is significantly higher than it had been).  I'm not too worried about it because it's short term, and in reviewing hands, I'm not really spewing.  The mistakes I'm making, when I'm making them, are betting with the likely best hand but when I should probably be checking for pot control and extraction, and also making some overly tight folds.  Neither of those are good, but they won't get me in a ton of trouble.  And over that stretch, I'm getting to showdown 26% of the time, so it's not like I'm going overboard blowing people off hands or folding myself.

I did finally have a chance to play a decent session yesterday, about 850 hands, and I could tell that I was a bit rusty for sessions of any length, as my focus was not too good.  Had really good seats on a few tables or I probably would/should have quit, but instead, I just sort of backed down from confrontations with TAGs after a couple poor plays (where I slipped back into some passive play) and focused on the weaker players.  I had to really bear down to concentrate the last 30 minutes of the session, but I feel I did a decent job.  I'm going to take a detailed look later to confirm that, though.