My lackluster (and often much worse) December continued Wednesday night, at the Crackhouse and afterwards.
If I'd left the Crackhouse at 10:00, I would have scored a satisfying 100% profit.
I left at 12:00 instead, stuck for 20 USD.
Early on I was both catching cards and playing nicely aggressive. It's always nice to be on the good side of the following exchange:
Can you beat a straight?
Yes.
I was fortunate enough to do a rinse-and-repeat on the theme a couple of times.
After a couple of hours, my strong bets were getting respect, and I got a bonus round when, after another strong bet ($3, if i recall correctly) on a river (after checking my straight caught on the turn, but into a scary third diamond), the table - led by Soxlover - helpfully pointed out to Alceste that the Mut had in fact taken down a number of pots without showdown. Alceste had two pair, hadn't caught the flush, and I scooped. The table failed to reimburse Alceste for services rendered.
Then I caught a bad case of card death.
I firmly believe I will never again hold 93o, because Wednesday night I saw my full lifetime allotment. And the few good hands I saw were never quite good enough. I bled blinds, and my big hands paid off bigger hands. Finally, I let Dutch My Inner Donkey out for a romp, and holding QcJc bluffed at a pot on the turn with nothing but an inside straight draw into a guy holding Aces up. When the river turned a blank for me, I called the last of my chips to avoid the hassle of getting $5.25 fished out of the kitty,
Came home wired, kissed the sleeping PhantomWife, fired up PokerStars, and managed to log out a couple of hours later actually up 150,000 or so PokerStarsDollars. I would say something about lights at the ends of tunnels, but I have become too familiar with the phenomena called "trains".
One final note: The Crackhouse crowd is always amused when I fold my unraised blinds. But my biggest fear when I hold something like 93 off is that I will in fact catch something like top pair, or worse, bottom trips, and bust out while drawing dead. Because I am a defender, this is not an unlikely scenario. I know that once I have the skills and confidence in my game to get away from trap hands, I need to start actually caring about bleeding quarters. (Once on Wednesday night there was a case where my 84 off would have flopped into trip 4's, and would have taken a pot that was eventually scooped by two pair. That stung.) Until then, and especially in the Crackhouse environment, I think I'm saving more money than losing by simply tossing trash cards when in the blind. As always, your mileage may vary.