AAAAAAHHHHH! Nasty beat down session.

Four stacks lost in one session.

Bovada 10NL

My two pair vs higher two pair.
My river straight vs full house on river.
My turn straight vs higher gutshot straight on river.
My flopped straight vs quads on the river.

Pulled the plug on the session. Time to review.

Total loss was $26.90, thanks to a couple of good hands that provided some balance.

Ah well, I was hoping to break $400 in my account this session. (I'd been running really good for the last week or so.) Not happening tonight. Thank goodness I wasn't playing above my bankroll.

Time to go have a drink, and try again tomorrow.

So?....The whining thread is down the hall on the left right here Wins and Fails - FTR Poker Forums

It's modded by a well respected high stakes player named gabe. Read his sticky here http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...on-117092.html

Okay, thanks for the directions on that one. I'm still learning my way around the forum.

Pardon my extending this one more post, but I think that I got something useful to me out of it.

Quick Post Mortem:

Looking back on the session, I'm noticing some strange things about it that haven't been happening previously.

I failed to practice pot control against a paired board.

I failed to practice pot control with two pairs under heavy betting. And I had no clue as to the tightness of my opponent.

(Not previously mentioned: I had a AAAQQ full house with A-9 in the pocket, against a tilter, and I called in position, rather than raising the river, thinking that I had 4 other ace combinations out there that could beat me, but not thinking that a) my opponent only had a 4-5% chance of holding an A. b) I didn't even think if his previous betting indicated that he was holding a higher ace; and, most importantly c) I was taking the word of the players in the chat box that he was tilting.

I changed one thing this session. I added one six-max table to my mix, from 3 to 4, and I started missing a LOT of details on all of the tables. I have been playing 3 six-max fairly successfully, and I had been playing 4 tables at 5NL, but they were all full-ring.

So...back to three tables for me.

PS: Feel free to delete/move this thread if you need to.

I can tell by your first post, and your second post that you have a TON of stuff to learn about poker. So much that its more than this thread can hold.

Thats exciting, right?

Best way to find out what it is you dont know is....wait for it...wait for itttttttt...to post some hands WITH your thought process! Make a separate thread each time, and then random other beginners circle peoples will run around and be like "wtf mate, you should be thinking about this!" or "no no no, consider this!" albeit sometimes not as nice :3

Alright, break! Post and be merry!

But guys, I had the best hand, but then some more cards came, and I didn't have the best hand anymore.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

But guys, I had the best hand, but then some more cards came, and I didn't have the best hand anymore.

Man, isn't that just the most soulcrushing way to lose 2.5BI? Its almost like poker isn't fair or something! Better go drink.

A Process of Illumination

(Dear reader: This article is an excerpt from my book: Elements of Poker. It's the last two pages.)

During bad times, we get unhappy. Let's say we wanted to be less unhappy during bad times. We could train ourselves to do it, if we were to use our bad times as opportunities to practice getting better at getting over bad times. The ideal arrangement would be if we had lots of bad times to practice on, so that we could get better even faster.

So, to help us accelerate the process of learning how to handle bad times, we decide to invent a new game. We call it: Bad Times. The purpose of Bad Times is to cause bad times for everyone. The more the better, and the worse the better.

We'd want our game to unleash waves of agony and anger, again and again, on every player. We would call our game a success if it caused depression, oppression, beguilement, defilement. Bad Times would follow us around and cause us grief, by souring our relationships, our disposition, and our grapes. We would design and refine our game to be seductive, and addictive, in multiple ways, so that its snares snag many and often.

Our game would not be like chess. At chess, whoever plays the best wins. Where's the agony in that? Our game must be viciously unjust: the better you play, the more exquisite will be your torture. To that end, we will employ a significant randomizing agent. Something like randomly selected pieces of paper with markings on them would work. We would attenuate the luck factor so that it causes the maximum amount of confusion, and delusion, and bad times, and very bad times.

Our game would not be like football or any other game that has teams. A team forms a supportive network that makes losing easier. We'll have none of that in our game. Not only will nobody and I mean nobody share your pain, they will probably enjoy it.

Mountain climbing is painful, but Bad Times would not be anything like mountain climbing. A mountain climber is so busy at not freezing to death and not falling to death that his pain doesn't really get a chance to cook properly. Our game would have gaps in the action, plenty of time for steaming, and simmering, and stewing, and boiling, plenty of time to allow the thinking mind to wander off and injure itself, so that we can practice healing it.

Let's see. What else. Oh, I know. Proximity. We'll sit in a circle, as close as we can get without touching. That way the bad vibes of Bad Times can spread easily and quickly, spraying fertile spores of conflict. And let's have comfortable chairs that stick to people who are stuck. And we'll have dealers, ghastly beasts possessing wizardly powers, able to raise the frequency and pungency of the bad times.

What would be at stake? What could we put on the line that would pour on the pain? What could we lose that would amplify the anguish? Pride? Of course there would be that, but loss of pride is not nearly severe enough to do the damage we're after here. Plus, everyone doesn't have it, so everyone can't lose it. We need something that is universally valuable. Something everyone has, and wants more of.

We decide that in our new game, the loser will pay, not only in pride, but also in cash. Money buys time, and food, and choices. Money is time, and food, and choices. Money equals food. Food equals life. Money equals life. Broke equals death. In our society, wagering money is as close as we can get to betting our lives. With so much at stake, our game is sure to cause desperation, and treachery, and man, this is truly a nasty game we are inventing here. Do you think we'll be able to get anybody to play it?

We play our new game, and the bad times come, and we remember to follow our breathing. In, and out. In, and out. By doing so, we set aside our thoughts about what went wrong, and we step away from our thoughts about what might go wrong, and for that moment, when those thoughts are gone, so too is unhappiness. By eliminating the past, and eliminating the future, we give ourselves this present. We will practice this process of elimination, using our new game, and it will become for us a process of illumination. Let us play.

A Process of Illumination | Article | TommyAngelo.com

that game sounds stupid

Sounds like someone wants to play 3-card Guts!

Rules:
Everyone Antes. This should be a ridiculously small amount... you'll see.

Everyone gets 3 hole cards. No draws. No community cards.

Probabilities and Hand rankings:
0.22% Straight Flush
0.24% 3 of-a-kind
3.26% Straight
4.96% Flush
16.9% Pair
74.4% High Card

*Note that a straight beats a flush.

Play:
Everyone holds out their closed fist and opens at the same time. Those holding a chip are in. Those not holding a chip muck their hands.
All who are in show their hands. Highest hand wins the pot, Everyone who was in who did not win must put a PSB out for the next deal.

*Note: The pot will remain the same if 2 people are in (and don't tie). The pot will double if 3 people are in (and only one wins). The pot will triple if 4 people are in...

If at any time a person is unable to place the PSB required of them, then they must place their chips all-in and they are no longer dealt cards during this round.

If no one is in, pot remains, redeal.

If only 1 person is in, or everyone who is in wins (like they all held AK5),
then no one replenishes the pot,
and the round is over.


Then we ante and go again.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

A Process of Illumination

(Dear reader: This article is an excerpt from my book: Elements of Poker. It's the last two pages.)

We decide that in our new game, the loser will pay, not only in pride, but also in cash. Money buys time, and food, and choices. Money is time, and food, and choices. Money equals food. Food equals life. Money equals life. Broke equals death. In our society, wagering money is as close as we can get to betting our lives. With so much at stake, our game is sure to cause desperation, and treachery, and man, this is truly a nasty game we are inventing here. Do you think we'll be able to get anybody to play it?

This, at the heart of it, is exactly why I play. No pixelated ogre on a clustered computer can even come close to the challenge that a human can give me when a portion of his life is on the line, even if that portion only represents 20 minutes that he worked earlier that day.

Poker is an honest exchange of dishonest information. I can bluff, steal, be deceptive, pillage and burn; then get up, shake hands with a friend, and go about my normal, honest life. I can be ruthless, exploitative, and trapping, enjoying a no-holds barred combat in a way that would be heinous were it applied outside of the game. Knowing that the damage is only that which gentlemen and gentlewomen agreed to beforehand.

When I'm in balance, not tilting one way or the other, it feels like balancing on a knife's edge. It's elusive and very easily lost. No decision "feels" right or wrong, just best as I know it. And there's a sense of seeing and understanding more than I usually do. I get this feeling maybe 5% of the time (10% if I'm having a really good week.) Distraction and impatience seem to be the biggest barriers for me to reaching it.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

We play our new game, and the bad times come, and we remember to follow our breathing. In, and out. In, and out. By doing so, we set aside our thoughts about what went wrong, and we step away from our thoughts about what might go wrong, and for that moment, when those thoughts are gone, so too is unhappiness. By eliminating the past, and eliminating the future, we give ourselves this present. We will practice this process of elimination, using our new game, and it will become for us a process of illumination. Let us play.

A Process of Illumination | Article | TommyAngelo.com

I really like this. Thank you for posting it. Back to my game, and practicing and refining patience, discipline, and knowledge.

Originally Posted by davisrei

My two pair vs higher two pair.
My river straight vs full house on river.
My turn straight vs higher gutshot straight on river.
My flopped straight vs quads on the river.

Difficult to comment without seeing the hands - your line is very important here in determining whether this is variance or bad play. I suspect there's quite a bit of sub-optimal play however based on your descriptions.

Shit happens though and the most important thing is to quit the session as soon as you start tilting and splashing around when 2BI down as this will only end up in a 4BI+ loss (been there, done that more times than I can remember).