Live home game, blinds 0.02-0.05 I'm average stacked , dealt AK UTG , bet 10xBB and got 3 callers. flop QJT rainbow. I check knowing the table is highly loose and expecting someone to bet. They all check. Turn comes Q, I bet the pot and a maniac re-raises 2x pot. All fold to me, I call. River is some rags, I bet the pot , maniac re-raises again and I call.

ofcourse he had this Qs full of something ..... (before this hand, the maniac was bluffing with hands like 24o and going all the way to the showdown so him re-raising isn't a real tell)


I'm just sick of it.. seems like no matter how much I read books and online, play 4-5 hours a day online, read and post hand histories, I just can't win sessions! should I just say to myself "this ain't your game" and move on?!

Dude, if you didn't realize on the turn that your AK was no longer the nuts ... and that you let anybody with 2 pair on the flop draw for free ... that's just not good. If you bet and get raised big on the turn AND the river, you gotta lay it down. Hell once I see that big bet on the turn I slow way down and check/call a reasonable river bet.

This isn't rocket science. Straights are not the nuts on paired boards. Of course you know that. The hard part, sometimes, is recognizing when you're beaten.

Thanks alot guys. You are true inspiration, and I read every post twice to make sure I didn't miss anything the first time..

The lesson I think both of you are trying to help me learn, is EMOTIONAL and SELF CONTROL. Sounds simple but sure is hard as hell to learn. I'll keep working on myself and my reactions, but I guess it's a never-ending work. Hopefully I'll start controlling myself well enough to stop losing and start grinding a little bit.

Recently I've discovered that before any big bad action, I have a certain feeling that I can classify a clear warning signal from my subconscience or whatever. This feeling is slightly different when I make a good call, I think I should be more aware to this signals and maybe it'll help me improve my game.

Last month I made a conscious decision to treat the entire month as serious as I would my job or my investments. I was committed to being disciplined and professional about it.

I had several tests through out the month where I had to make very difficult folds against opponents that pissed me off; however, I did it, and preached to myself, "this is the spot where discipline separates players."

Net result for the month? Plus 21 buyins. A connectIion pehaps? Duh.

Yet, even dispite this obvious correlation, I still had trouble last week being disciplined. Rhound is right. It's about emotion control.