A Bad Week, A Good Fold

I've been spending the last couple of days trying to bounce back--emotionally and fiscally--from an awful week of really bad poker. At one point, my 'roll was down to $35. Yes, you read that correctly: thirty-five stinkin' dollars. Astute readers will recall I was hovering around $500 back at Xmas. Four hundred and sixty five dollars is a long way to fall in a month and a half. How, may you ask, did this calamity happen? Answer: Bad beat after bad beat after bad beat. I had everything go wrong you can imagine, including aces cracked six separate times, kings cracked eight times, and queens go down in flames four times over the past two weeks. I even experienced my first-ever set-over-set-over-set loss. Mix in some old fashioned tilt, plus some bug-tilt, and you have the recipe for a disaster.

Coming off another bad weekend of downward variance, I was in a very bad emotional place and threatening to give up poker all together, but (fortunately) Mr. Multi talked me down off the ledge and I'm back to working hard at building the bankroll up. It's going to be a long, tough slog, but what are you gonna do? Quit? Yeah, right. Like I could do that. Instead, the answer is just focus on playing solid, tight-aggressive poker, pay attention, don't be results oriented, and get off of losing hands....

...and speaking of which, I must pat myself on the back for a huge laydown I just made tonight. I was up $14 or so playing 3 tables of $10NL. I picked some really juicy games and fortunately ran fairly well in all three. I got all my money into the center with nines full of tens against a complete maniac in one game, and made TPTK and two pairs hold up in the other games. But my biggest hand was one where I actually lost money. The reason I'm pleased with myself is that I could have lost a lot more than I did. Here's the set-up:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (9 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($15.20)
BB ($14)
UTG ($8.70)
UTG+1 ($7.70)
Hero (MP1) ($10.20)
MP2 ($17.90)
MP3 ($17.30)
CO ($35.30)
Button ($26)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with A, Q

UTG calls $0.10, 1 fold, Hero raises to $0.45, MP2 calls $0.45, 1 fold, CO calls $0.45, 3 folds, UTG calls $0.35

Flop: ($1.95) J, 3, 10 (4 players)

UTG checks, Hero checks, MP2 checks, CO checks

Turn: ($1.95) K (4 players)

UTG checks, Hero bets $0.80, MP2 calls $0.80, CO calls $0.80, UTG calls $0.80

River: ($5.15) 10 (4 players)

UTG checks, Hero bets $1.30, MP2 calls $1.30, CO raises to $10.30, UTG calls $7.45 (All-In), Hero folds, 1 fold

Total pot: $22.65 Rake: $2

I was praying for a K on the turn, and I was praying a diamond and/or the board pairing didn't pop on the river. Alas all three things happened. That's the bad news. On the other hand, I really think I did everything right in this hand, including the pulse bet on the river to see where I was. You could argue a check-fold may have been better, but what would I have done if I'd been raised, say, $3, made the crying call, and was then squeezed by one of the other players? I think a bet-fold was the right play. Sometimes just minimizing the damage is as good as winning a big pot. Well, almost...

All-in for now....
-Bug