Friday, November 03, 2006

my nemesis

I have acquired a nemesis in our weekly game, and I'm not quite sure why.

In our third "season" a new guy joined...and in the first two games he attended, I won. Since then, he has made it his mission to bust me. He told me last night that when he busted me out of the first game of season 4, it "made his season" and he didn't care if he won a game. Weird, right?

I think I've been nothing but nice. But maybe that's my problem as a woman....I care if he "likes" me. So lame.

Last night my nemesis got the best of me. I get AQo in under the gun and raise to 30 (3xBB). Folded around to nemesis in SB who raises to 100. BB folds, I flat call (should have reraised I think). Then the flop comes A, K, 5, w/2 hearts (can't remember which were the hearts....but I have no heart). Nemesis pushes All-in. I have him covered, but calling and losing will leave me with little more than 200 chips left.

I hemmed and hawwed and then totally fucked my game up by folding. I was going through hands in my head....does he have AA, KK, AK, A5? I convinced myself he had one of those hands and was pushing all in so that I would call and he would bust me. I played scared. So stupid! I should have realized that if he had such a strong hand and wanted to bust me, he wouldn't play the hand so fast.

Calling and winning would have set me up nicely to play my normal, aggressive game. Instead, I played weakly, didn't have any chips to play with when the blinds got higher, and eventually lost a race to leave the tourney 10th out of 19th. Wah Wah.

Hopefully that'll teach me not to see so many freaking monsters under the bed.

I also realized that I've been playing a lot more "fun" and "jokey" at the table. And I've been losing a lot more. A connection? Maybe. I'm going to go back to being SeriousTart at my next game to see if it makes a difference...

Thursday, November 02, 2006

humble pie, poker style

What an audacious start, one post and then a 3 month gap.

They say that it takes 21 days to make a habit stick – maybe 21 days of posting will (finally) get me into the habit of writing. I feel like it would beneficial to write more about my game, but my procrastination laziness prevents me from actually doing it. To be honest, that sentence could apply to just about every aspect of my life. But I digress.

Back to my poker game.

So much has happened since I last wrote.

Mr.Tart and I arrived in Vegas while the WSOP main event was underway, so we decided to venture out to the RIO for a looksee. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t blown away. I was a total fan-girl – getting pictures with poker celebs and soaking in the atmosphere. I’ve read enough poker blogs by now to feel the undercurrent of jaded bitterness of those who’ve been to plenty of these events, but this was my first time….I giggled like a school girl for most of the afternoon.

My results in Vegas were mediocre. I was up a couple hundred, but didn’t feel spectacular about my game. Mr.Tart did much better – tripling his buy-in at almost every game we played. Fucker.

Returning back home was another story….I went on a run at our weekly league and won 5 out of 12 games in the season. This, indeed, is the set-up for my recent fall.

And my recent fall…..I’m now in the hole for the year. Not by a lot (less than $100), but dammit…I feel like all my work so far this year has been for naught, and now I have to slowly rebuild.

It’s all my own fault, too. I stepped up too quickly and got too cocky. I’ve been gambling too much, hoping to catch lucky cards to take down monster pots. Then when I lose, I chase my losses in an attempt to get back to where I was. So, so bad.

Now it’s back to low limits, back to playing for the love of the game, and back to realizing that I’m no poker pro – I’m just a girl who loves to play poker.