More Razz

Case No. 3, where he catches a good one and you catch a bad one, while cut and dry, is one of the most important situations in razz. It is your major money maker because unless there has been a double raise on third street, or your hand is extremely good in that it is very low and live, you should fold when he bets.
--Sklansky on Poker, p. 124

Anybody want to guess how my two razz sessions went tonight? Let me give a brief synopsis:

1. Complete with a three-card eight or better.
2. Get called by a decent player showing a low card.
3. Catch a queen or king on fourth to his good one.
4. Fold.
5. Repeat.

Throw in a few strong hands on fifth street that got called down by garbage and then turned into junk by the river, and that's how my night went. I dropped 6 big bets in the 5/10 game and 9 bets in the 1/2 game. Most frustrating of all, being called on fifth street showing A-6 / 7-A-2 by someone holding T-4 / 5-7-Q, and losing. I guess he figured I paired my ace? I can't figure it out. This seems like an automatic fold on his side for me, but maybe I'm missing something. I mean, forget the fact that I could already have a made hand. Even if he thinks that I've paired, I'm drawing at a seven and he's drawing at a ten. Translation: even if he catches on sixth, he needs me to catch a bad one as well. Since sixth street is almost automatic, I can still potentially outdraw his made ten on the river if I don't already have it beat on sixth.

In between, I had probably the worst holdem session I've played in some time. It started out ok, but then I lost my focus and started to play horribly. That was another 7 big bet loss at 3/6. So, total loss for the night about $120. And this is supposed to be fun?

I keep telling myself "big picture, big picture, play 'correctly' and it'll even out" but clearly a) I'm not playing correctly all of the time, and b) I'm getting frustrated by this extended downslide / break-even slide, so that even small losses are starting to gnaw at me. I've now completely wiped out the Party reload bonus from earlier in the month, so for the month I think I'm dead even - but that's only counting the bonus money. Without the bonus money, I'm in the hole $175.

It's not fun, and it hasn't been fun for a while now.

[Edit: I decided to give it one more crack, and sat down 3/6 HE again after I posted this. I wasn't catching much the first two orbits, but then in a span of 4 hands I hit $60, $72 and $49 dollar pots (net to me $124 total) with top pair that survived three callers to the river, a turned flush, and flopped trips, so net loss for the day was only $20. Still, my "it's not fun" comments stand.]