Hella Hold'em

Ha! I used "booboo" in a post! Giggle!

What I'm really giggling about is that the poker gods were kind enough to return my sanity to me so that I could play my game and win back the $50 I lost last night. Plus a little. Up ten bucks on one table, twenty on another, and forty on the third. The forty bucks was thanks to my diamond nut flush smashed up against my opponent's..... two pair. Ouch. Hopefully he learned his lesson as I did last night.

Thanks a ton to DuggleBogey, SirF, Drizz, and StB (do you have a blog? I have no link for you!) for sharing their thoughts on my mournful hand from last night. DuggleBogey's sentiment has lodged itself permanently in my brain - "be mad at [opponent xyz] all you like - you still had the third best hand." The third best hand. Ouch. I sure did. And another angle I hadn't even thought of, courtesy of Drizz - if I'm going to be mad at anyone, be mad at the KK limper, because had he raised properly instead of playing all trickery-dickery-dock, I'd have never called a preflop raise with my hand. So true - I'm not a big blind defender, so I know that I'd have folded. Man. That sucks. But still, every street needs to be considered on its own merit, and I had plenty of opportunities to fold. So I still must take responsibility for how I played the hand. But man, it sure would have been a different outcome had the KK limper raised as is customary with kings. His limp cost him his entire stack, as well.

Anyhoooo, tonight I sat down on Full Tilt with the intention to play for one hour. Last night, I had the same intention, then overstayed my bedtime trying to clear the next ten bucks in bonus money, and lost my stack in the process. D'oh! So tonight I was determined not only to play my game and not repeat yesterday's mistakes, but also to go to bed on time, regardless of my win/loss status or bonus status.

Here's something nutty that SirF had mentioned the other day, and I actually got to see it happen today. He said something about how when you move up from the 25NL to 50NL buy-in, if you play the same game, and get lucky enough to hit a monster, your double-ups are twice as big. Well, tonight I doubled up on one of my 25NL tables on one hand (well, I buy in with $20, so doubled up to $40), and I doubled my $40 buy-in on the 50NL table on one hand. So, two big hands, but one profited me $20 while the other profited me $40. Interesting. Vewwwy vewwwy interesting.

One of these days I'm actually going to buy in with the max amount. It's been superstition that keeps me buying in just under the max. Why am I getting superstitious all of a sudden? It's not really part of my personality. Maybe a tiny bit - I believe in karma and what goes around comes around, but not really superstitions. Gotta quit that before I get neurotic about it.

The one hand I wish I had back tonight was another big blind special. Damn big blinds. I had T4 clubs in the BB, and got to limp into a pot. Flop comes 44x rainbow. I check, other guy checks, button checks. Turn comes a blank. I check, other guy checks, button bets half the pot, I call, other guy folds. River comes - I forget what. Nothing scary. I check, button bets the pot, I re-raise double, she goes all-in her last couple bucks, I call. Turns out she also had a four - A4 soooooted, and my kicker condemned me. Lost about five bucks more than I should have on that hand. I don't think I could have gotten away from it though. Even a flop bet wouldn't have rid me of my button opponent, as she had the trips like I did. And I sure wasn't folding, with no real scary hands out there - no straights or flushes, if I recall correctly. Ahhh well. That's poker.

Time for bed. Thank you, poker gods, for giving me my mojo back! I'm sorry for being a dumbass yesterday. I'm absolutely certain it will happen again, in some other form of dumbass mistake, but hey - I try! I'm learning!! :)