Poker Pain is Mutual part four

It's so hard to do though when you play poker
even for a long time. I've been there. Coolered and battered and beaten and it feels like it happens every time but in reality the ones that sting the most are the ones that end your session because your session was all but over anyway. In my last session of the weekend I went to the Beau where I've run bad of late.

This is another of those superfluous contributing factors that f with you mindset. I wasn't quite ready to call it a night after a day of playing but I wanted to say hi to some people and then kill some time. Why not sit in a game, I had enjoyed a couple of poker tournaments
why not another cash game?

I went out with a different strategy and paid the price a little bit. I decided that I would just play for two dealer downs and try to double up if I got a big hand. But like my first friend I didn't pick up as I told myself I would. The game was far better than the one I crushed earlier in the day.

Also, they had turned it into a 1-2-5 game with a mandatory straddle. Opening raises were 25 and 30. Since I sat down in a 1-2 game I didn't mind being table asshole and refusing the mandatory straddle. I got the wrath from a lot of players but f them. I was going to piss away an extra $5 every orbit because they wanted to play in a 2-5 game. Most of them didn't even have the stack for a 2-5 game and were out of their depth.

For my double up and run strategy, with the short stack the straddle actually helped my purposes. Course I got into this bad hand that I mangled.

I opened under the gun with AJ suited for 15. I don't like this hand but after folding for multiple orbits I thought I could play it rather gingerly and people might approach me with care. The reason you don't play AJ from early position is you flop an ace and have no idea where you are. I did just that.

Before I could make a decision the small blind open shoved for half my stack. Plenty of people to act behind me. Old man to my left was counting out his chips for the call, and I fold. He calls, the rest of the table does too. Small blind had A10 and the old man A6. It goes runner runner to improve my best hand to the nut flush. I would have won without it.

At that point I mini-tilted as I was letting other things going on in the game effect my play. In my phantom stack I had doubled up and then some and was out the door. In reality, I played a hand that is terrible out of position and made a reasonable fold post-flop.

Had I won that hand by making a bad call or shove of my own post flop, I would have walked out the door thinking I played well and accomplished my goal. But I wouldn't have.

When I talk to my friends again, I'll remind them about the vicissitudes of the game, empathize with them, getting coolered and not leaving at the right moment are so hard to take, and encourage them. They are both good players. One did nothing wrong and the other is just in a bad spot. If the first is playing to win money he'll have to pick up when he's up and the table improves. The other can't beat himself up for being coolered. There is bad luck in poker it befalls all us, and it's painful, and it sucks, but it's the game we chose to play, sometimes we strike out and sometimes we get beaned but we can't be scared of the pitcher.

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