Last Night's Game

I've been reading this book that Travis let me borrow. Your Worst Poker Enemy by Alan N. Schoonmaker. Its not a book on poker strategy/theory or anything like that. More like helping you to identify and stop psychologically based mistakes, Using Intuition vs. Logic, Evaluating Yourself and the Opposition, Understanding Unconscious and Emotional Factors, Adjusting to Changes and Handling stress.

This book is great so far, Yes its kinda hard for me to understand, so I re-read it and re-read it...It has helped out alot this year so far, I'm still reading it, for some reason it takes me forever to get through a book...I guess cause if I don't understand a section, I'll go back and re-read it again. Like some people, they are good just reading it...some learn easier with a teacher...I need both. I need to go home and read it, then go to class and the teacher talk about the chapters in my face.

I wish I had an outside source that can be very honest with me with my play and what not. Being that I play with alot of the people in our circuit. It's hard for me to distinguish someone critizing me for the better or to use it for later on down the road to felt me. Seriuosly, when someone says I have been playing good, I can't tell if its genuine or if its a ploy to keep me playing the same way. Even when playing around, we call each other fish, and I believe half the time they really mean it cause I know I do!

I made a mistake going to the game with only 1 bullet. I normally have a stop/loss at $500 and call it quits, when you beat, you beat, right? I just can't see getting into a $1-$2 NL game for more than that. I've seen it done, and yes, I'm guilty of it, but I know what it feels like, and its not cool.

The night was pretty much cut and dry. I went into the night saying to myself, I am more of an intuuition player than logical player, but this year, I have been putting alot of logic to my thinking so I can help correct my mistakes. In turn, I am not making my decisions so instantly.

Last night I learned a good lesson. I will not post it on here, because alot of people I play with actually might read this blog. But here is a hand history that actually felted me last night which helped me on my self evaluation. Also, I have a theory I want to test out on one of the players I think I figured out last night, the whole night, I tried to predict his actions, and most of the night I was correct, which is why I should've went with my gut instinct last night. I guess from that, you'll know exactly who I'm talking about. Mind you, so many people have different opinions on this guy. Even though he might be an asshole to most of everyone when playing poker, I actually think he knows the game very well. I actually think he is a good player. Most might disagree, which is why the poker economy will never go dry. No one will ever think or play this game the exact same way!

I'm starting this hand with around $335'ish and I started out the night with $200. I'm on the button and its limped around to me, and I make it my normal $7 to go preflop...I catch 3 players to tag along...

Pot: $30
Flop: Jc3s7s

Ted Checks, Harold checks, JayH makes it $10, I raises it to $35, Ted makes it $135, Harold Folds, Jay folds, E re-raises to $185, Ted moves all in, I call. Ted has me way covered.

Turn and river I don't remember, I know the flush got there on the river, but Ted turns over a flopped set of 7s and I flopped bottom set and lose.

I call it a night.

(Its hard to believe me, but Honestly, I actually go in the tank and first thing that came to my mind was he hit a set of Js again. I wanted to muck so bad but then this exact thought came to my head..."I don't care, I'll stack off with a set all the time" Those that know me know I have been saying that for years, and after that thought, "raise" came out my mouth...I decided that I needed to see for myself, and even if Ted was fucking around with AJs, He'll lay it down, but since my mouth acted faster than my brain and I decided not to go with my first instinct and give the hand up after only committing $42 total dollars, I raise enough to commit me to get my money in the middle.)