Another Bridesmaid

2nd again
Heads up with Amatay again
Rivered 5 or 6 times, again
(he has some kind of hex on me!)
Final hand, 67% favourite pre flop, but twas not to be

Ces’t la vie, again

On another note – was it just me, or was A 10 shown sooooo many times last night? :-)

Was kind of expecting this, Poker Stars had not been playing nicely (as I say to Mia). I had Amatay a few times but he rivered a K against my 88, rivered a str8 against my TPTK to name a few – but he played his hands well, and I can only say well done on being the first back-to-back winner since the tourney began. This game is as much about luck as it is skill (well, at Joker Stars it’s mainly luck!) and I’ve been in his position before, so congrats again on the win.

Headed over to the cash tables in a pretty bad frame of mind after the day, and should have shut the laptop down and gone to bed. But no, I chased those ghosts and hit some incredible beats.
Ad Kd v my 22 – flop came 2 x x (2 diamonds) so I bet 3 x pot. He called, turn x – so I put him all in for another 50 or so $’s. He calls. Despite this poor call, he rivers his flush and I reload. Few hands later, I get 77 and raise it up about 5 x bb. One caller, flop has 2 colours with a 7 – This time, I push all in, totally eradicating any possible call for the flush. But no, he calls, turns over 2 of the same colour and again rivers his miracle card. Believe it or not, this happened twice more so I was not best pleased, to put it lightly. I behaved like a 3 year old and had a sulk.

Then, I emptied my Poker Stars account of all but 24$, enough for the next 4 Blogger tournies, and (in true 3 year old style) am seriously thinking of giving up online poker. Been thinking this for a while, tbh – this isn’t a knee jerk reaction to one days play. Just getting fed up with the most ridiculous events that seem to happen on a daily basis.
‘Flopping a set is like gold dust’ so Mr Harrington says in is book. He’s obviously not played online poker at this level before, as my Poker Office shows that if I get called to the river when holding a set, I lose about 42%. Hardly gold dust. And, for the record, I never slow play a set, because of the reasons above, unless a very scary board and a caller.

So, it’s time for a break from the game, and what I plan to do is withdraw what I have online, and play a few more live games. I’ve seen a few statistically unlikely cards in live games, for sure, but nowhere near the number of times I’m seeing at the moment.

Probably shouldn’t be posting in this frame of mind, but the break is definitely on, and apart from the Blogger Tourny, I do not intend to play any online poker for the remainder of the month. I’m going to read a few more poker books, re-read the books I have already and see where I’m going wrong. This year has been a bad one for me, and although I have clawed things back these last 2 months, I’m now back in a minus for the year and I don’t want to lose control.

I’ll keep posting and certainly keep reading the links to the right, amongst others. Who knows, after a week I may find I am back at the tables like a junkie wanting his fix – who knows?