Poker Update

Things started off great. 20 minutes in I got K-K. I upped the blinds from 50 to 150, got two callers. The flop was K-x-x. I put in another 150. I was raised to 500. Gave the acting job of my life to reluctantly call. The turn was nothing. I checked, he checked. The river was nothing. I checked again, he put in 500. I went all-in, he called, I busted him out. He had K-Q and never saw it coming.

And then it all fell apart. Two factors.

1. The law of small numbers. In one hand I had A-10, the flop was K-x-x. I had bet heavy preflop and semi-bluffed postflop getting lots of action. There was an all-in. I figured him for K and nothing else. I had 2 cards to get an ace and I was getting 4 to 1 on my money. Had to do it. I did it and lost. On two other hands I had pushed big on bluffs, gotten a huge raise back and found myself with the pot odds right to call even though I figured I was well behind. I was both times and lost both times. The lesson is: Pot odds only work when the pots are fairly small in relation to your stack. If they are big then you can get busted out with only one or two hands going the wrong way. Playing a 20% hand with 7-1 on your money is a winning bet over the long run, but if you only have enough money to do it twice, the odds are you’re going home.
2. I was out of it. I woke up at 5:00 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I had a ongoing firefight at work in the morning. I broke my glasses. Then we had layoffs announced. In the midst of all this, Mrs. Muttrox called to let me know that the 3-year old had fallen off his bike and was at the hospital getting stitches. By the time I got to the game I was mentally done already.

So I got knocked out. I was packing up to go home when we decided to change house rules and allow later buy-ins, because we had started with only six. Muttrox, you in? Um. Yeah, sure, why not. It’s only money. I lost that stack pretty quickly too. Went all in with 9-9 on a short stack, J-J called me and won. Oh well.

Tonight: -$40
Running Total: $555