Another gut punch last night. I'm now up a meager $560 on the year, which I guess is nothing to sneeze at, but this is now my second $1k downswing. I really don't think it's "that" bad, considering I play in a deep 1/2 game with a lot of straddles, but these always come at bad times.
My typical schedule on a playing night is to get home around 1am, and getting up at 6:30 for work. When I win, I sleep like a baby. But on nights like yesterday, I toss and turn for over an hour replaying hands in my head, and I end up dragging ass at work the next day.
Here's the two hands giving me nightmares.
Few limps to me, I make it $15 with A
K
. Bad lag limper calls, and we're heads up to the flop.
Flop ($30) K
3
3
He check/calls my $15 bet.
Turn ($60)K
3
3
T
He checks, I check back. I am trying to induce a river bluff here.
River ($60)K
3
3
T
J:diamond :
Check. Bad runout. But against a station, I still want to bet. For some reason, I convinced myself to bet $25. He x/r to $100. I did not see that coming. I level myself into believing he had busted hearts and called. He had 63o. I completely missed he could have checked that 3 times.
Next hand:
A
A
UTG. I make it $11. 3 calls, including a snug player in the BB.
Flop($40) Q
7
6
I c-bet $30, bb calls.
Turn($100) Q
7
6
8
BB open jams $83. If I would have stopped to think about this, I probably would have figured out it's a fold. Yeah, he's got *some* Qx and combo draws here, but the way he had been playing, I think he would have gone for a cheaper showdown. I didn't stop to think though. I called way too quickly and got spanked by 66.
So some more bad play by me, and I got punished for it. This felt like the worst I've played in a session in a long time. I guess to only be down $260 on a night where I made those two mistakes, plus some other small ones, isn't too bad, but I need to play better.
Some of this is partially driven by winners tilt. I get overconfident. I think I can outplay everyone. I think I have the game solved. I know downswings will happen, but the fact that they always seem to come after a heater tell me I have things to work on in my game. The good news is the games I play are soft enough that I still have an edge. But I know if I want to stay competitive in some of the bigger games in Vegas, I will need to play with better discipline, and make better decisions.