by TightWad » Mon Mar 21, 2005 7:54 pm
Hey, hey!
Finally had a decent day this week. I played for about 4 hours today, and finally booked a good win; $213.50. Still down for the week, but I'll take it! I also realized a really stupid leak I have. Other than playing too many hands (I've already accepted that this is an inevitable result of my flawed character, and I'll just have to make the best of it)
Since I play a lot of hands, I'm often in a lot of tricky, marginal situations. Thus, I do a lot of betting/raising/check-raising on the flop for information purposes. The theory is, I do my best to figure out whether or not I'm likely ahead as soon as possible, so I can therefore play (or fold) accordingly. Problem is, I often get that information, but choose to disregard it and keep playing even though it appears I'm beaten. Pretty idiotic, huh? Well, yeah, but there's really no need to hurt my feelings with words like idiotic. I mean, jesus, you insensitive prick, show a little tact! Fucker.
I very often find myself playing the likes of middle pairs and top-pair-pukey-kicker, which can often be tricky; but when I'm focused and disciplined, I feel I play these marginal hands well; I'm able to extract good value when I'm ahead, and get away when I'm not. Granted, sometimes I'll play KT, flop a king, and get called all the way down by a passive KQ; but if he's given me no reason to worry about my kicker, I'm not gonna lose sleep over losing the pot. What DOES make me lose sleep are those days where I can't manage to drop these marginal hands when I know I'm beaten. These last few days, there's been too much of that.
I guess it really just boils down to focus. Whether your rock-tight or a bit more looseish, you can still win as long as you make good decisions after the flop. And lately, it definitely looks like I need to do a much better job bringing my A game. Or honestly, at least my C+ game.
-TW