So, December (actually starting right before Thanksgiving) has been suck-out-the-Mut month.
In that time, I'm actually up about $20 in online dollars. In PSD I'm now down a cool million from my high water mark of 4.2M.
Quite a bit was from bad play. Quite a bit of that bad play was the direct result of Cooler hands.
As Dawn of Crackhouse fame recently noted, a long run of bad luck can get inside your brain and stir it around. So it has been with me. I'm doing a pretty good job at the beginning of sessions shaking off the bad beats/cooler hands. But as each evening wears on, my fealty to solid poker becomes more and more eroded as my intelligently-pushed chips bleed away to join those which were used in idiotic calls or raises.
Dutch (my Inner Donkey) starts whispering everyone else is hitting their flush draws. Go ahead. So what that the board paired on the turn? If you hit an ace you've got aces up! You have outs. So what there's an all-in bet out in front of you? You have a pair in your tidy whities, right?
That's a mean motherfucking inner donkey.
On the plus side, Dutch only reallys starts to make sense when my opponents make exactly the same kind of call and it works(!), taking my trips, Ace kicker down to flushy, flushy hell.
All. Month. Long.
Last night I had flopped straights go down to rivered-four-to-the-flushs (multiple times), boats to quads (only once), flopped top two pair to flopped bottom set (two clubs on the flop, from the cutoff I went all-in to drive out anyone with the flush draw, and the button instacalls with his set; c'est la vie, but it hurt), top-and-bottom pairs to top-and-middle pairs....
And yes, I do like cheese with my whine.
Lapses notwithstanding, I'm okay with my overall play the last couple of sessions. (That which does not tilt me makes me stronger, I guess.) I did catch a really fun hand from the Big Blind when I standard raised 1400 with Big Slick, got raised then re-raised by two aggressive wrong-end-of-the-alimentary-canal (WEOTAC)-type players, I called, the flop is Ace-King-Ten giving me top two pair, I called the 5000 / 10000 raise/reraise, the King on the turn gave me a boat, I went all-in to the cutoff's raise and got called by the cutoff. The river is harmless. After he mucks, the cutoff WEOTAC guy says "I guess three Kings wasn't good enough." Guess not.
Yep, that was pretty much a triple-up hand against a couple of playmoney trashtalkers. Definitely a "why I love poker" moment.
Last hand irritated me though, even though the outcome was good.
It was way too late. I can't even remember what position I was in, because it had become one of those tables where position doesn't mean shinola, a couple of the players would call anything anyway. I think I was in cutoff, but I'm not sure. (I might have been on the button). Les Deux Orangs (LDO) is behind me, WEOTAC players in front of me. I'm holding Queen/Jack suited in hearts. WEOTAC players drop something like 2400 each onto the felt, I call with my suited paint, and LDO raises to something like 40000, or roughly two thirds of my stack.
Okay, the WEOTAC boys were getting on LDO's nerves, and mine too, but that bet pushed me over the edge. I've played LDO a lot, and as it gets late he has a tendency to pass right through loose/aggressive and into what-the-hell-is-he-doing. So I figure him for some trash Ace. I know he's messing with WEOTAC, but he's also pissing on the first good cards I've seen in a half hour.
WEOTAC boys call. I think the bet put one of them all-in. I make the call as well, with Dutch-my-inner-donkey cheering from the mental rail.
Flop comes 7-8-9 rainbow. Again, I can't remember if I checked the gutshot straight draw, or if LDO opened with a bet to put me all-in. Doesn't matter, because Dutch was pulling my strings, and when the betting was over both WEOTAC boys were all-in and so was I. I added a "nite all" comment with the call.
(In Dutch's defense, I was betting 20,000 to win over 200,000. 10:1 pays for a lot of weird shit).
I'm sure that even through the thin channel of game chat LDO was just bathing in the love I was projecting.
Turn is a 6, completing the Budagi on the board. I'm figuring LDO has either made a straight, or has a middle pair, Ace kicker. So I'm probably in very bad shape, but have 10 outs to at least take LDO down (which counts for something, because as great a guy as LDO is, I am in fact pissed off at him, even if I can't beat the WEOTAC guys). But of course, none of that matters because at this point we're all tourists waiting for a river ride.
River is a blessed Ten, making my gushot straight for the absolute nuts. LDO is outraged. The luck! The injustice!
He shows his AQ offsuit. WEOTAC guys muck.
"I was ahead the whole time!"
Yep. He did in fact get all his money in after the flop with Ace high, no draw. Don't know how that might have fared against the combined forces of WEOTAC; I suppose only they could tell us.
Do I feel good about my mental performance in that hand? No. Do I feel good about felting the WEOTAC guys (and to a much lesser extent, calling LDO on his BS)? Oh, yes.
Bottm line, for my last hand, I rake in something like 230,000 PSD.
Which makes me even for the night.
Ah, December....