Bad Habits

Sat down at donkey corral (>40% players/flop, >20xbb avg pot), and watched some horrible hands (such as this). I didn't get into a big one until limp-calling a 5x pf raise with 56s and flopped flush. I check-called $4 on flop, then min-checkraised $8 bet on turn - I put him on AK/AQ or big pair, but I should've bet much more than min-checkraising in case he had As or Ks, which he did. My move raised him $8 in a pot of $35, which gave him easy odds to call. And then I stupidly check-called $20 on river spade, knowing that he had the big flush. Stupid, stupid. It's a tendency of playing a hand as if the last card had not yet fallen, something I really need to work on. That hand set off a tilt run that cost me a quick $100, and had to work twice as hard to grind $50 back.

Another tendency I have when a bad beat hits me in the corral is to play as bad as the donkeys around me. I really get caught up in the loose action.

I took a break, took a nap, and woke up refreshed for some PLO. I find that if I play badly at one game, switching between NLHE and PLO helps me get back on track. I took down a small $10 pot flopping 3 pair the first hand in 50plo, when Phimmy called me down with what had to be a weak hand. I stacked him a little later in a $45 pot with 2nd big boat over his set. I've seen him play a lot better than this - can only assume he was just done at that table. This hand kept developing in interesting ways. I tripled the limpers with A678ss from the blind, small bet my 2nd pair + top of open-ended draw, small bet turning flush draw + 2 pr, then small bet again rivering boat. I took down the $20 pot. After this 20 min session I'm +$7 for the day. Woo-hoo!


I followed Phimmy to the $1-2PLO table, where I quickly lost almost a third of my stack early by check-calling a pot bet of $14 with open-ended plus med. flush draws. The call was good, but then I made a bad $20 call when I rivered the flush (and str8!), but villain hit boat. Bad misread. I made it all back plus when Phimmy made a weird preflop raise UTG with a very weak hand. I flat called with AAxxs, and flat called his $30 bet flopping queens on Q99 board. He's a maniac. I called with AA+nut flush draw, third guy calls with KK+2nd nut flush draw, we all check down hand and I collect $140 pot. I later fired a decent value bet on turn and river, and Phimmy checkraised me from $10 to $50 on river, I fold. Reluctantly. I think the guy is just firing out chips. The best position to be in with him would be to slowplay the pure nuts. I'm pretty sure he'll do the betting for me. More proof that he's insane? Look here. He limp-calls a big pf raise with a medium-strength hand (at best), then calls a guy all in with a gutshot and a 7-hi flush draw for $67 on the turn. I end the PLO session up $20, down from being up $60 early, but way up from being down $40 earlier.

After eating a really disappointing Italian sub from Pizza Boli's, I joined some action at 50plo 6 max, and this short stack quintipled up from $20 playing very aggressive hands like this, where he reraised the pot preflop with junk 77T5s, but this time he got caught vs AAK8 - or did he? No, he rivers crappy two pair for $57 pot. He was trying to establish position so he could bluff at a raised pot later (that's how he built his stack up thus far). After being exposed so baldly he completely changed his style. He got me in a big hand when I raised pf with xxx and he reraise from blind with 7756s. He flopped set and slow-played it at first, slowly dialing up the heat as I improved to a set of aces on river vs his small boat, and I called a big $19 bet. I end up $60 down for the session by playing his game instead of mine.