Control

I don't like whining about bad beats and most people don't like reading about them. Bad beats are a part of the game that you have to live with. That's where it gets tricky. Pile a couple on top of each other and it can be difficult to maintain emotional control.

There's no question that I'd been running good for about two months before this week. I had luckboxed a couple of slim draws and seemed to win all the right flips. When the flip was for a $50 pot, I lost; a $500 pot, I won. Then this week it was like the universe decided to pay back two months worth of missing run-bad.

It started with a couple of just generally blah sessions where I couldn't get much going. I also got 3-outed for the biggest pot I played in those two sessions. Still, the losses were mild and I was able to shrug them off.

Yesterday I put in one of my longest sessions this year because the games at Mandalay were quite good. So of course this was the session where I was epically dead. I had long stretches (hours) without winning a single pot while watching people around me make atrocious plays and give away chips. For me it was either a case of unplayable hands or board kryptonite. I did not make a single set, straight or flush in almost 10 hours. Not even sure I flopped any draws to them. Every big pair was either cracked or got no action.

That left me with the one-pair and two-pair type hands (when I actually made some) which my opponents had no problem running down more often than not. And given the station tendencies of my opponents, there were few good spots for bluffing. At one of the best tables I'd seen in several weeks, I wound up down two buy-ins because I literally couldn't buy a pot.

Obviously two buy-ins isn't the end of the world. It's just frustrating, coming at a good table and on the heels of some crap sessions. That's where it becomes difficult to maintain emotional control. I probably played one hand quite badly towards the end of the session due to frustration and it cost me some money.

I've been playing a lot lately because I've had the time. Yet given the state of how things have gone lately I think I probably need to pull it back a bit. It's too bad, because the games in the next week should be excellent. But a little break to shake off a nasty, lingering funk is sometimes the best solution.