Feeling a little bit better

Didn't play any poker on Saturday, but I got in a good 750 hands at 200NL while I was watching the pathetic Vikings game.

I think I played some really good poker. I didn't make any huge mistakes, and my reads were right on most of the time. I was feeling good. Unfortunately, I still lost 2 buy-ins. But I can't dwell on that and be results orientated. I'm just worrying about making the correct decisions, and getting my money in when I am ahead.

The hands that contributed to my 2 buy-in loss were: 1 cooler, 3 suckouts, and two AK hands where I was all-in PF being up against big hands.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1691357
The cooler (For those unfamiliar with this term, it means a big hand up against a bigger hand) was one that I probably could have gotten away from. I posted the hand over at two plus two, and most people said my play was what they would have done. But some said they could have found a fold. I raise it up from MP with 98s. The CO, Button and BB all call. Flop is 982 all spades. I bet, and the CO raises. What do you put him on here? He could have any number of hands, with a lot of them being draws. So I pushed and he had 54 of spades for the flopped flush.

I probably could have gotten away from this hand if I would have thought about it more. Because ask yourself this question: What kind of hands do people flat call PF raises with? Pocket-pairs and suited connectors and 1-gappers, right? When was the last time someone called a PF raise with T9o? A9o? JTo? It just doesn't happen that much. So if you take away those hands, and try and figure out what someone would have after raising me on the flop, that pretty much leaves 99,88, 22 and made flushes. I've got 4 outs or less against those hands. The only other hand that fits with the above description is JTs or 76s(not of spades) for an open-ended straight draw. And if you were to do that, you could only really count 6 total outs instead of 8. And I really doubt someone would raise in that spot with those hands

Anyways, that hand sucked.

The three suckout hands were totally standard for me.

• I got it all in against a half stack with JJ vs his K5s on a 853 rainbow flop, and he went runner-runner flush on me.
• I raise AJ and get called in 3 spots. The BB donk leads into me on the Jack High flop and I call. He leads out full pot on the blank turn and I push. He has KJ. King on the river.
• Agro maniac donk with 50/30 stats min-bets PF. I call from the button with QJs. He leads pot on the Q72 rainbow flop. I just call. The turn is a blank, and I let him bet again, and I call. River is a 4 and I let him bet again and I call. He has the mighty 74 offsuit.
  

I probably should have played that last hand differently, but sometimes the best thing to do with some of these agro donks is to just let them do the betting. I did that, and he caught a 5-outer. Meh.

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I can't seem to win with AK and AQ this month. I have 7 hands where I have gotten all-in pre-flop with those hands, and I have lost every single one:

• AK vs KK
• AKs vs KK
• AKs vs AA
• AK vs QQ
• AKs vs QQ
• AQ vs A9 vs KK ( I thought the BB was squeezing light, so I pushed)
• AKs vs AKs
  

I lost every one of those. Yes, even the AKs vs AKs. Granted, I am a dog in 4 of those, and a coinflip in two, but losing all of those is pretty unlikely. The probability of me losing every single one of those is 0.727 %. 1 time in 137.

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I'm hating that this poker blog is turning into just a bunch of bad beat stories. It's not my intent, but I still think it is important to put down my thoughts and to really look at the hands and learn from them. Before, when I would have downswings, I would just not post at all. That's even worse than posting Bad beats if you ask me. Of course, I think that there are only 5 people who read this blog anyways. Ha!

Cheers!