How one hand destroyed one night of poker...

I am a relatively small stakes poker player. I usually stick to $.25/$.50 NL HE and $.10/$.25 NL HE. I am a consistent winner and rarely have losing sessions. So I decided recently to try to make a run at higher stakes. Of course the benefits are many - if I can get my 8-tabling up to the same success rate I have at the small limits at say $1/2 or $2/4 then my profits could be HUGE! Another plus is that the bonus clearance rates tend to be much higher at higher limits - allowing me to make more money through bonuses too.

So last night I sit down at 8x $.50/$1 tables. Things did not go very well - and I learned a valuable lesson. ALWAYS STICK TO PLAYING YOUR GAME.

When I play I always buy-in for the maximum amount - $100 per table in this case. Unfortunately I have money on 4 different sites at the moment and my neteller was empty. With only $650 on America's Card Room I decide to buy in for less than the max at my tables so that I could maximize my hands per hour (although this was not a smart decision because it minimized how much I could potentially make with a great hand against a good hand). So with about $80 at each table I start my session. First hand on my top left table I'm dealt AA in the BB. A player in early position raises to 4xBB I figure him for a hand like KK, QQ, JJ, AK, AQ, or AJ. Its folded to me and I figure its a better play to just call so to disguise my hand's strength (again this is a play that can be very dangerous, and one that I rarely make, but I digress). Flop comes KT2, rainbow. On the flop I am hoping my opponent has something like AK and he leads out for a 1/2 pot bet (leading me to believe this) - I call. Turn is a blank, I check, he bets - and now I raise 3x his raise (about half my stack). He calls. River comes another blank - no straights or flushes are out there. I check - figuring I can just call the river - and he might bluff a hand like a PP or think AK is good and try to value bet here. He goes all-in, I call - he shows KK. :(

Now this hand was the absolute hardest situation for my hand and my opponent really happened to play it in a way to trap me for my whole stack. Had he check the flop and reraised me when I bet the turn I could have folded - as it was he got me to go all-in when he had the nuts. Sneaky plays can really kill you if you get unlucky. So here I was doing my least favorite poker move - going broke with one pair.

Immediately after this hand, I took my autoposting off and left all the tables to go get a drink and think about the hand. I decided that it was somewhat my fault I could have raised preflop, or on the flop to gain more information when the bets were smaller. At the same time sometimes you just get unlucky. If my opponent had AK or KQ or QQ I had them crushed and I'm taking their whole stack. Once I get to the river, in this spot, folding does not seem like a good play.

So once I sat back down at my computer I decided to fire poker back up and play some short handed games at the $1/$2 tables - 3 tables only. I started loosening up a bit more than normal (short handed play sort of requires looser play) but got coolered multiple times! One hand AQ with a Q high flop got another player all-in on the flop and he sucked out a T with QT on the turn. A few hands later AA lost to set of 8s on the river. Pretty soon my initial $650 was down to $300! What a terrible night of poker!

I started to realize that my loose style was causing me to play hands that I would never normally play to raises or out of position. After losing another $100 I decided it was time for bed and logged off. This was a TERRIBLE night of poker - and although I took multiple "bad beats," I caused myself to have a losing session because I started playing in a losing way. I stopped stealing on the button with medium suited connectors because the higher limits made me unfortable to raise with mediocre hands preflop. I started bluffing less and playing more timidly. And when this is combined with players who are gambling more (players with greater skills often try to make trickier bets and raises - its makes playing against them more volatile - its tough to call down a reraise all-in with top pair with a flush or straight out there. This is why they do that, but it makes playing against them much more difficult) I was setup to lose a lot of money.

I went back to my usual stakes this morning and made about $100 in an hour. I played super tight and aggressively in position. I stole a few decent sized pots, and trapped a few players who overplayed their hands. Its nice to know that a bad night doesn't mean that I'm a bad player - but its important to recognize where things went wrong and how I can improve. I'm going to play some more later today - I'll post anything interesting that comes up in the next few days next time...