Holdem Dog’s

Wow, how things can change.  This past week has reversed nearly all my success in the sit-n-goes over the past month.  In just one week, my run at Poker Stars has been so bad that I’m down $200.  It’s been sick.  The beats have been ridiculous, and worse the players have put their money in with some of the most pathetic hands.  In some ways that makes it harder to take.  It’s normal in sit-n-goes to get to a point where everyone is pushing all-in, and occasionally a QQ will lose to a JJ or an AT, but when an AK loses to a K8 that’s downright disgusting.  I can’t believe they’re even in the hand.  Nevertheless that would be manageable if it was just occasionally, but it seems to be the norm lately.  I’ve been trying to work on my emotional response to “bad” beats.  We all suck out from time to time, so I’ve been trying to maintain that perspective and realize it will happen to me.  The sit-n-goes exaggerate this because the pushing becomes frequent in the later rounds with a lot more all-ins, and consequently a lot more suck outs.  Most of the time it seems balanced though.  Generally the best hand wins, so my faith in the skill of the game is reinforced.  If you make the right decisions at the right times and you’ll be successful (most of the time).  However, when I see a seriously skewed number of hands where the worst cards win my faith is shaken. 

I’ve been at this point before with Poker Stars, where it just seems that no matter what I do the deck is stacked to screw me.  I went for over a year not playing there because I was just sick of the asinine beats.  I try to approach it logically and say it’s just random variance and not the site, but damn the variance seems to never end.  It’s probably a psychological thing at this point.  A form of site related tilt.  Some evidence of this is I’m not losing on Vegas Poker or Cake.  I’m up about $100 for the week between these two sites, so my overall losses aren’t as bad as they seem.  Plus the rakeback helps a little.  The mental part of this game is definitely something I need to keep working on.  Sometimes it seems like the most important aspect of poker to master.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve blown off all the money I’ve won in just a couple of tilted hands.  It’s frustrating, and I often call my opponent’s hand before he beats me.  Learning to control these emotional swings would definitely make me a more profitable player.  Bad beats are one thing, but throwing my money away is quite another. 

I’ll probably lay off Poker Stars for a week or so just to cool my head.  In the meantime, I plan to play a few more cash games at Cake Poker and see if I can’t get more profitable in that area.