Need to vent, or maybe just some advice....

[Gomez22]

2 hands that utterly devastated me this morning....

Both same table, UB $.50 BB NLHE - 9 handed

HAND #1

I'm BB with black 5's, and ~$63.00

UTG($20.50) limps, CO($53) raises to $1.00, button calls, SB folds, I call, UTG calls.

FLOP($4.25): 5 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif 7 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif A /images/graemlins/club.gif

I bet $5.00, UTG folds, CO calls, button folds.

TURN($14.25): 6 /images/graemlins/spade.gif

I bet $15.00, CO raises to $30.00, I push, he calls.

RIVER($112.00): 6 /images/graemlins/club.gif

CO showed A /images/graemlins/diamond.gif 6 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif




HAND #2

I'm MP1 with K /images/graemlins/spade.gif K /images/graemlins/heart.gif and ~$55.00

UTG(~$64) limps, I raise to $3.00, MP2 calls, UTG calls.

FLOP($9.75): 6 /images/graemlins/spade.gif 2 /images/graemlins/spade.gif 10 /images/graemlins/spade.gif

UTG checks, I bet $10.00, MP2 folds, UTG raises to $30, I call (Should I have pushed here? or folded?).

TURN($69.75): K /images/graemlins/diamond.gif

UTG pushes, I call....

RIVER(~$110.00): 4 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif

UTG shows 9 /images/graemlins/spade.gif 8 /images/graemlins/spade.gif

Needless to say, I feel like slitting my wrists after these 2 hands.... Thoughts? Anyone wanna pass the tissues?

[scrub]

Depending on your read of UTG you should probably push or fold the second hand on the flop.

More importantly, you should realize that these are really standard beats. You should expect to lose a not insignificant percentage of the time that you flop a set or have overpair + flushdraw. If you're playing in a good game and you are consistently getting action with these hands, they are going to lose regularly--very few hands in Hold 'Em are enough of a sure thing that you should be shocked to lose.

If losing those hands is going to upset you, especially if you do not play as well when you are upset, then you need to work on handling your beats better. That or play in games where everyone is better than you and you never get all in while you're ahead.

scrub

[Gomez22]

They didn't have the effect on me that I may have insinuated that they did, but they did make me shake my head somewhat..... It just gets..... for lack of a better term, let's say "frustrating" to see other draws hit when all of yours fall by the wayside.

I'm not really complaining, because I've been through the ups and downs of poker, and I know how big varience swings can be, but these 2 hands happened within maybe 10 minutes of each other, and were just plain ole disparraging (sp?) to me. Not to mention that it ain't exactly the way I wanted to start the month, by any means.

After the 2nd hand was over, I immediately thought that I shoulda pushed on the flop, since I was going to end up there anyways; either that or fold, I just can't figure if UTG's play in hand 2 was great or absolutely horrific.

[scrub]

I don't think UTG played it half bad.

The raise might be a little on the big side to call preflop assuming that you're not going to bust yourself a high % of the time your premium starter gets busted.

I like the flop--he's got a vulnerable holding that he needs to protect from a naked /images/graemlins/spade.gif draw, and he knows that you've got a hand that you like. I think his raise did a decent job of making you draw with pretty bad odds as long as you don't set up on the turn.

You're looking for "discouraging" and not "disparaging."

One of the most frustrating things about playing NL online is that it's a fundamentally boring game if your opposition is weak enough that you ought to be playing with them. You sit around protecting yourself and making the occasional read-based steal when you think you can get away from it, waiting for the opportunity to get called when you have a monster. It sucks when you get called with the monster and lose--you're going to have to be bored for quite some time to make up for it.

Have you thought about breaking up some of your NL play with limit? I'm currently on a hiatus from NL, and I'm having a lot of fun working on my limit game. You get to make interesting decisions with a much higher frequency playing limit.

scrub

[Gomez22]

I originally started playing limit, and have only been playing NL for about a month and a half now, so it's still somewhat "exciting" to me (this morning excluded, of course). Given that, I'll probably play NL for awhile and switch back to limit a month or so before I go to Vegas in June.

[CrisBrown]

Hi Gomez,

[ QUOTE ]
It just gets..... for lack of a better term, let's say "frustrating" to see other draws hit when all of yours fall by the wayside.

[/ QUOTE ]

According to Tommy Angelo, the correct term for that is "flushstraighted," or in this context, "flushstraighting." And we've all been there.

Cris

[cornell2005]

id just fold hand 2 because he has 2 of your needed spades

[Ulysses]

If those frustrate you, I can't imagine how you'll react when something like this happens:

You raise w/ Aces. Flop comes 8KAr. Checked to you, you bet pot. Other guy checkraises you all-in. You call. He has 33 for the ill-timed bluff. Turn 3, river 3.

That's a frustrating beat. Your hands are pretty run of the mill in NL. Not fun, but commonplace.

[Gomez22]

I said frustrated in the sense of that it was for lack of a better term... The whole day's been running like that.... Pocket aces 3 times today, cracked twice, pocket kings 6 times.... won a big fat ZERO with them, 1 against Q9o(all-in pre-flop, mind you... for a $140 pot), and the other against A10s, when running 10s came on turn and river (all-in on flop for a $60 pot).

1 flopped set today that I took down a $6 pot on the flop with a pot-sized bet.... BLECH!!!!

Today must really be April fool's Day, because I feel like all the fools are playing poker and hitting their miracles against my dumb ass....

/images/graemlins/confused.gif

'Mez