Hiatus

I'll fill you in on what happened yesterday.  I'm not happy about it, and it's pretty retarded/embarassing, but whatever.  After last night I decided I need to seriously take some time off of poker.  At least 2 weeks so I can focus, reflect on things, and be ready to play my A game.

Last night I went up to the Wynn to play some 1/3 NL.  Bought in for $500.  The day started out fine.

Hand 1: Guy in middle position raises to 15.  Someone calls, and I call from the blind with A-Q.  I already don't love it.  We see the flop 4 ways.  Flop is A-10-7 with 2 clubs.  Checks to the preflop raiser and he bets $25.  Guy calls the $25 and I call.  Now the other guy in the pot raises to 133 total.  I fold.

Had some disappointing hands.  For example :

Hand #2 : Limp with 9-6 offsuit on the button.  4 people see the flop - 10-8-7.  Guy in the blind bets out $15 (little more than the pot).  Folds to me, I make it $40.  Fold.  Damn.  I figured raising was fine because I wasn't using any of the cards on the flop.  If he had a set, or an overpair, or even a 9, I figured I could pretty easily get called there.  Just bad luck he didn't have anything really good.

Hand #3: Raise with 5-5, Flop a set on a A-10-5 board.  Bet 10 into 2 people, 1 call.  Turn Q.  Check to me, 22, fold.  :P

Hand #4 : This one basically started the downfall for me the rest of the night.  I raise with A-10 suited to 11.  1 caller, and an old guy limp-reraises me to 28.  Fucking annoying.  I call, and the other guy calls.  Flop comes Q-x-x with 2 of my suit.  He bets 25, I call, the other guy calls.  Turn is a blank.  First guy checks.  Preflop raiser bets $70.  I call.  Probably should just fold here.  He has $200 more behind, but when the flush gets there he's almost certainly going to check.  I'm getting 3:1 on my money and need closer to 4:1 (little better than that) to call.  If you factor in the implied odds I guess it's fine, but whatever.  I need to make like $100 on the river to break even.  Also I thought the other guy might call, even with a worse flush draw, which would have been great for me.  Of course he didn't call.  River brick, he bets $100, I fold.  Sigh.  Another flush draw missed.

After this point, my brain just kinda broke.  I don't know what happened.  I bought in for another $200.  On that last hand, I shouldn't really even be that upset about it.  Pretty standard really.  The call on the turn, maybe I could have folded, but it's not THAT bad.

I straddle for $6 and this girl min-raise opens on the button.  2 calls and I call with 5-3 offsuit.  Not great.  Flop is 10-6-5.  Check to her, she bets 28, I call.  Turn is a 6.  Check, she bets $40, call.  River, check check.  She has K-K.

OK, that was stupid.  Call the flop, fine.  Not good, but let's say it's fine for some reason.  Once she fires the turn, give up!  Also, she's a girl.  Just fucking check/fold the flop.  Sigh.  That hand made me pretty upset, just because it was so obviously stupid.

Now I'm frustrated and I get the brilliant idea that I'm going to - wait for it - play my hands blind for a while.  HAHA!  Yes, you read this correctly.

A long time ago, I read about Annette Obrestad playing poker online, blind, and being able to win just by playing position and paying attention to good spots to bet/bluff, etc.  I think this is an article about it too.  So I think it's a good idea to pick this time to do the same thing.

It actually started out OK.  And it was fun.  I didn't look at my cards unless I was going to fold (in case I accidentally had a monster - spoiler alert, never happened).  Few hands where I did this:

2 people limp and I make it 12.  Get 2 callers including one guy behind me.  Flop is A-4-3 with 2 diamonds.  I see the guy behind me glance at his chips and I decide to check after the first guy checks.  It checks around.  Turn is a diamond.  First guy checks, I bet 22, both fold.

2 people limp, I make it 15.  I felt 15 was better than 12 because people were calling 12 too much, and both of them folded.

One limper, I raise to 8.  2 callers.  Flop is K-6-2.  First guy checks, I bet $16, 1 fold and the guy that checked calls.  Turn is a 10.  He checks, I bet 35, he folds.

It actually was going pretty well.  I lost some hands, but overall I was about even.  And one of the hands I lost was when I was going to fold, looked down at A-K suited and ended up losing about 40 bucks in the hand.  So as far as just playing blind, I think I did pretty well.

Until this hand.  I raise to 8 in late position.  This old guy reraises to 28.  I obviously should fold most of the time an old guy raises me, but I think I've seen this guy before and he plays a little aggressive sometimes.  REGARDLESS, I should still have folded.  He was playing tight today and who knows, I might not even be remembering the guy right.  Regardless, I decide to reraise to 70.  He calls.  OK, red flags should be going off at this point.  Flop comes out J-5-5.  He checks, I bet all-in, and he calls for 110.  So retarded.  If he put 70 in preflop, there is already 140 in the pot.  Even if he had A-K he might call just because the pot is so big.  Fucking retarded.  I look down for the first time and see A-8 suited.  I miss, he turns up Q-Q on the river, and I lose $200 for no reason at all.

If I'm going to play like that, I should at least FOLD WHEN OLD GUYS RERAISE ME!!!  WTF?????  And at least check it down after the flop.  Even when I reraised preflop, I was thinking this is my one shot, if I get called I'm done.  Because I thought (even though it was stupid) that this guy could be reraising me light.  If that was the case obviously he would fold.  So when he calls, he wasn't bluffing, he has a good hand, just check/fold.  Nope, I decide to throw away the rest of my chips.

I ended up losing $550 yesterday.  $200 of it was on that last stupid blind hand (and by blind I mean not looking at my cards, lol).  $80 was on the hand where I decided to be a hero against that lady with K-K, and about $120 was when I had a flush draw.  Overall not good.

Even playing blind wasn't that terrible of an idea.  I thought last night, that was so stupid.  But it wasn't that bad.  Just was bad that I completely ignored the extremely obvious warning signs and decided to throw $200 away.  Should I be playing blind all the time, no.  Obviously.  But it was actually going fine until I decided to throw away anything smart about what I was doing by raising/reraising a guy who clearly had a good hand.

Sigh.  I'm on a huge downswing right now.  Probably over $3k down.  I wish I could post a picture of this graph.  It's awful.  Looks like a mountain.  I was doing so well for a minute, now I'm in free fall mode.

The good news - I'm still in action.  I have about $5k in my bankroll, so I have plenty of time to come back.  That's probably the best thing, just to make sure that I can keep playing.  I'm going to take a little time off.  I don't know if it will be a week or two weeks, but it won't be much longer than that.  I just need to calm down, make peace with the idea that I'm down right now, and start crawling back.  Poker just happens in waves.  I had a huge upswing earlier, and now I'm in a downswing.  And I'm making the downswing worse by playing bad.  So I just need to ride it out, play well, and eventually I'll be the guy on the other side, hitting huge hands and getting maximum value out of them.