Some ramblings...

[esspo]

Two nights ago I had a long session at the 80-160 game at Bay 101 where I ended down about 1/2 of a rack. For the most part the game was great (one particular player left 14k on the table), but I had one of those nights where I just couldn't get over the hump to log a decent win. Everytime I would get to even or a little bit up I would get AA or a set cracked. I lost with AA 5 times, KK twice, QQ once, 2 sets blah, blah, blah.

The point of my post isn't to blather about bad beats, it is this: As I was headed to the casino, I was thinking how nice it would be to log a modest lost. I know this sounds wierd, but I usually either leave a big winner or lose everything I bring. Thankfully I have won more than I have lost but its almost always one or the other. Part of the reason I do this is that I don't play very often so I sit my arse in a seat and play until its time to go. I realize this creates a serious problem, in terms of my overall score, because I basically ignore game selection as an important part of my strategy. I am working on that.

Anyway, back to the point of this post. After a 12+ hour session, I ended up exactly where I wanted to be as I was headed into the casino. That started me thinking about my mental state of mind as I was headed into the casino before some of my losses. I am starting to wonder if I really have that much control over my success and failure at the table.

Please discuss.

[dtbog]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyway, back to the point of this post. After a 12+ hour session, I ended up exactly where I wanted to be as I was headed into the casino. That started me thinking about my mental state of mind as I was headed into the casino before some of my losses. I am starting to wonder if I really have that much control over my success and failure at the table.

Please discuss.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I don't think you genuinely 'wanted' to lose half a rack, I imagine you wanted to win. I'm sure that when you were thinking about this before you entered the casino, you weren't thinking along the lines of 'I want to lose money today', you were thinking 'I hope that the next time I lose, I lose less than everything that I brought with me'.

This could have influenced your play in two ways:

1) When you knew your AA was beat, you folded your hand instead of tilting away that extra $160 on the river because you were focusing on keeping your losses to a minimum

2) You were thinking 'I'm probably going to lose today' the whole time and made it a self-fulfilling prophecy by playing your hands suboptimally

which do you think it was?

-dB