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.