Lydias, 9/10/07

Traffic was an absolute nightmare. It took me 27 minutes to get to work....1:40 to get to Lydias. I knew going in if I played I would be on tilt.

That in itself is a weakness in my game and something I need to work on. I need to develop a strategy for getting off tilt when I am dealing with outside distractions. Time is probably the strongest distraction as I hate, hate, hate being late to anything and especially to something I am running.

But that is life. Sometimes you are going to arrive late.

And have a short table. Including myself we had 7 tonight. It was, however, a good 7 for me to play against. To my left was Bill, a solid player who has a betting pattern where you should know when you are beat and when he has something but not much. To his left was Todd, a frequent bluffer who plays a lot of weird hands. To his left was Danny, a solid player but very easy to read. To his left was Randy who sometimes is a very, very solid player and other times is all over the page. To his left was Marykay, a wild player. Sometimes she is deceptive and other times she might as well play with her hand face up. To her left and my right was John, far and away the best player there for several weeks now whether he will admit it or not. And me, Captain Openly on Tilt.

To my credit I knew I was on tilt so made a point of being selective about my hands without going overboard. I considered position, players, and more or less played the Sklansky hand selections.

I won a few pots, lost a few, nothing super memorable. Then came my first idiot pot.

I had A/Q and raised it. Bill called. He does not call with nothing. Flop was all low. I raised "to see where he was at." He called. I figured him for high cards. Turn was an Ace. I checked. He checked. River was a King. It crossed my mind he might have an A/K. I dismissed it for 2 reasons; 1) I had not bothered to put anybody on a hand all night...which showed that I was allowing myself to tilt in ways other than playing stupid hands. and 2) He had not raised it.

Uh...there is no law whatsoever that he must raise A/K. Yes, he TYPICALLY does...but he is at times a deceptive player. So I decided my Ace was good, raised, he re-raised. Anybody who knows him lays down their hand right there. I called just to prove he had me beat...which he did. He had A/K which I had thought about and dismissed because I was not putting in an effort...and because it was not something I consciously put him on or tried to.

Hey, idiot...when your instincts tell you something, believe it. Trust your instincts.

I cost myself probably an extra 1500 on that hand.

Which was not a huge deal. I made a lot of it back with fishhooks, more with pocket 7s, a bit more with a straight.

Meanwhile, John and Todd were accumulating masses of chips, John with his usual solid play, Todd with more controlled play than usual but a lot of aggression.

After Bill, Danny, and Randy busted out came a hand I received a lot of undue credit for. I picked up something like a Q/9 and played it cheap from the small blind. Flop was ugly, A/Q/rag. I checked. Todd checked. Turn was a King. I checked. He raised. I reraised. He folded.
"You must have a really good read on me tonight," he said.
"Drew is the master at reading," said John.

Well, the truth is...I had no read whatsoever. Oh, I did not believe he had the king...but it was more a "Ah, he is bluffing here...but if he comes over the top of me I am folding because he might have the King I am not crediting him for" type raise. I was completely just seeing where I was at.

Anyhow, coming down to the end I made the final three...not such a big accomplishment when you consider we only had 7 to start with...


For the night, however, it was indeed valuable to play. I was able (I thought) to work through my tilt to play decently in stretched, tightening up when I got towards short stack but never playing maniacally.

However, I also figured out I was allowing another form of tilt. I was not reading people at all. A couple times I had a vague sense of being ahead or behind but it was just instinct, not actual intellectual play. That has to change.

So I have identified a problem with my game and that is always a good thing.