Moved to a new city where gambling is legal, and started playing 1/2 live about a month ago. Have ~55 hours over ~20 sessions. Today was the worst session yet (3 hours) and here are the biggest losers from today.

I lost ~$275 in these hands, but another $325 in pre flop raises and c-bets (~70%) that whiffed. Nothing hit, no one folded. Definitely should have double barreled in at least two spots, though. Also every time I flat called in position I missed completely and there seemed no good way to win the pot post-flop. [end rant]

In both spots, Villain 1 is the same. He is OMC who is sitting directly to my left and seems barely conscious most of the time. He has jerky movements and is often unaware of the action on the table ("Did he bet? Oh is it me now?"). He seems to just look down at his two cards and bet or call when he has something. He loves Aces, and this guy owned me today.

Villain 2 in spot 1 is a TAG-ish reg who is on tilt from losing a bunch of pots recently. He is visibly red and frustrated.

Hand 1 - Pocket Kings
UTG straddles for $5, Hero (BTN ~$300) makes it $20, Villain 1 (SB ~ $400) calls, Villain 2 (BB) goes all-in for $85. Hero flats, Villain 1 flats.

Flop: Ad Jd 2s (Pot ~$250)
Villain 1 donks $13, Hero laughs, rolls his eyes and calls with KK (have a diamond).

Turn: 4c (Pot ~$275)
Villain 1 bets $60, Hero folds. River bricks, Villain 1 had AQ, Villain 2 had AT.

Hand 2 - AK
CO limps, Hero (~$175) in BTN raises to $15 with AKo, Villain 1 (SB ~ $500) calls, CO calls.

Flop: Ac 6s 9s (Pot ~$45)
Villain 1 donks $15, CO calls, Hero raises to $60. Villain 1 calls, CO folds.

Turn: 7d (Pot ~$175)
Villain 1 checks, Hero goes all-in for $100. Villain 1 calls with A9o (two pair). River bricks.

--

Any constructive criticism or words of encouragement appreciated. Particularly confused about how I also lost $325 over 3 hours while playing ~10-15pct of hands dealt and only putting money in past the turn in the above two spots. I am not particularly nitty but truly card dead today and not getting good spots whenever I did play a hand. But to lose more than a buy-in from blinds, pre flop raise, and c-betting seems weird.

Grunch.

Hand 2 looks totally fine IMO, NH.

Hand 1, I would probably just re-raise in this spot to make things simple. No need to get tricky. Even with that said, OMC isn't getting correct odds to set mine, so flatting and hoping that he comes a long with a smaller pair (or a hand like the one he did) doesn't seem horrible. I assume if the flop was Q high he would have been giving you all his money, and on an ace high flop you got away cheap.

Either way, you played fine and got unlucky. These definitely aren't hands to lose any sleep over.

I would def shove pre in hand 1. Flatting isn't terrible, but I wouldn't ever flat with anything but AA facing an unobservant villain as a potential overcaller - shoving is clearly profitable whereas flatting introduces a fair amount of danger.

After flatting you played correctly post-flop imo.

Hand 2 looks 100% standard - especially after Villain has shown he will donk bet with top pair.

RunBad bro

hand 1: I can see why you'd flat. Totally fine wouldn't blink twice about it. but Reraising pre can help avoid taking Too many players to the flop.

hand 2: Standard cooler. omc donk leading would be strange to me... prolly not doing it with a draw. but thats a normal cooler mang don't beat yourself up!

I actually like the flat in the first hand considering the third player is all in. You make more money in the long run by keeping OMC in but of course increase immediate variance.

Second hand seems pretty good too especially since CO called between you.

I'm also not sure how you can lose $325 in 3 hours raising pf 10-15% and c-betting. I guess if you literally never pick up a pot it could happen.

Hand 1 I prefer you just play your hand aggressively and let villain make a mistake. A lot of times villains will get it in as 80/20 dogs.

Hand 2 Kinda torn on best line. With position, think i prefer call on flop and then generally raise get it in on turn. Raise on flop isn't horrible since villain could put us on a flush draw but too often these OMC fish can fold top pair weak kicker but if you call flop and turn is a blank villain will never fold turn after betting it and if either villain has flush draw you will be able to price them out on the turn and depending on action they will probably still call.

Result oriented.

how so? serious question.
If so..

am I worrying too much about short term variance by wanting a re-raise some of the time

hand 1 i like the flat. You want oto keep v1 in the hand. Shoving here does not 'allow them to make a mistake' ... Shoving allin allows them to fold weaker hands which would not be a mistake,they would be playing their hands correctly vs the top of our range. Also do not laugh and roll your eyes during a hand, that is just foolish.

i have no input on hand 2 . **** happens.

The hands you posted aren't the problem. This is:

Doesn't seem weird to me at all.

Let's say your preflop raise is $15 and your average c-bet is $35. If you whiff and get caught bluffing 6 times, you've lost $300.

Failed bluffs add up. It's important to realize that. It's also important to realize when you have a losing image and the fish will be looking to take shots at you. And it's extra important that you recognize the difference between a good spot and a tilt-induced spot. If you do not remember how you lost all those hands, that's a pretty good sign that it's tilt (I know because I've been there).

Basically what I'm saying is, you made this thread about the part of your session you couldn't control. The real loss is coming from a part that you can control, but that you're overlooking.

Ideally you want to be able to come back from sessions like this and say, "Man, I ran really bad in that KK hand and that AK hand--but somehow I only managed to lose $350 instead of two or three full buyins." Losing less than a worse player would lose is winning!

You may have bigger leaks with your c-bet and open raise strategy than these two hands. These two hands are just totally fine

Hand 1 is fine. The $85 is big enough that you don't need to reraise to isolate. The only reason to shove would be if villain would call with any decent ace but fold flop if he misses. That would just have cost you more money in that hand but it's higher EV in the long run.

Hand 2 is really about reading villain. Against most OMC types I'm calling the flop bet and folding on the turn if he bets again. The first bet can be any good ace, but if he continues it's probably TPTK+. There are spazzy donks that I go broke against because they have worse AX and lots of draws in their range but OMC are usually tight/passive and their donks are strong.

Why are you averaging less than three hours per session? You should be grinding 6-10 hours per session. There may be times when you need to cut a session short: poor play, excessive tilt, stop loss reached, nit infested/can't beat the rake game, ect.

I really hope that you aren't cutting sessions short in order to book a win, as this is one of the worst/unprofitable strategies in poker.

As far as the hands go, it looks like you ran into some negative variance. I prefer a shove pre-flop in hand one. Primarily because I want to give V the chance to level himself into calling my shove with QQ/JJ or AK.

GL

100% agree. These were just the biggest, most notable hands so I wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy and there isn't some huge leak with the way I played these.

I do remember ~$150 of the failed bluffs/missed pots and noted some of them down. I will likely make a separate thread about them to see how I'm doing as far as cbetting. There are definitely leaks in my pre-flop/flop game but I am not sure to what extent. I wanted to know whether it was even feasible to lose a little over a buy-in from "running bad" in c-bets (and inevitably some "playing bad" mixed in), and based on your response it sounds like it is.

No, I'm not cutting sessions short to book a win. I have a full time job and there is no way I can grind 6-10 hours per session. Plus I like to spend just as much if not more time studying the game away from the tables. I am not trying to go pro, just trying to take this seriously as a hobby and get good.

I find that I start getting tired/distracted after about 3-4 hours, so there is no way 6-10 hours would be optimal while I'm trying to focus on improving my game.