Live Session #45: The Worst One Yet

Let's get straight to the point: I've gone and chucked away £400 tonight and it aint even funny. First off was the £33 donkfest at The Fox. Yeh... whatever... I have an early exit with a dodgy all-in while holding top pair average kicker but am called by someone with top pair/better kicker - bosh, the end. No real problem - I'm getting to hate these bloody things anyway and really shouldn't play them.

Next up was The Empire. I arrive there at 8:30PM and plonk down £370 on the table. I sit back and for the next two hours see every single one of my marginal preflop hands fail by a mile to hit board after board after board. I get no opportunities, certainly no hands, and then drop around £80 on the rare moment I do connect with a flop - I chase an open-ended straight draw for a reasonable price yet fail to improve. ( I hold QK while the flop is 10 J Q but I just know the villain is ahead and, after a brick on the turn and river, his river bet tells me that he has me beat - maybe I shoulda raised before but maybe I'm just playing bad.)

Later, I raise with Q K on the button but then get a reraise by someone holding AA - and it's basically all going horribly wrong. At around 10:45PM and with a stack of around £200 I finally see AA and take down about a £20 pot. And then on the very next hand I look down at KK. Now the problem is that I haven't seen these premium hands in a month of Sundays and, of course, as I get AA and KK back to back, I just fall in love with KK and overplay the hand. This leads to my downfall. Yep, I raise preflop and get two callers; the flop comes 10 J Q and I go all-in only to see my villain call and flip over A K - he has me covered and it's thank you and goodnight!

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At the moment, I'm just feeling annoyed with myself for failing to be patient or for exercising any degree of restraint. In fact, it actually felt just like the old days when I knew the situation called for reconsideration but I would go all-in anyway - and, of course, regret the consequences. There were plenty, yes plenty, of other soft-spots at the table at the time of my disastrous all-in and I really should have been a lot more patient. 

Unfortunately, I'm now having a mini-crisis of confidence and I'm starting to doubt my ability as a player. In fact, I'm just going to go ahead and suspend any blog activity for the time being and to just keep my poker exploits off the record for a while. I may just have a long break but I'll see how things go up to my Vegas trip and let you know at a later date what the score is.