Day 143: Not a Whole Lotta Action

The doldrums continue.

On Tuesday I placed 4th in my A League tournament, which was a cash but nothing to write home about (oh the irony! apparently it was worth blogging about, sorta kinda).

Then I skipped merrily over to the Crime Scene game, anticipating great juiciness. I had been informed that one of the most actiony of action players was attending. He brings huge variance to the game, but ultimately can only be described as the softest of soft targets. I was licking my chops.

The first half of the night I prospered mightily. I had more than doubled my money. Life was sweet.

And then I think I went on win-tilt. Or maybe not. In any case, I misplayed a hand that wound up with me going to head-to-head with the only really skillful player at the table. In the end, he turned over quad tens for the mortal nuts. He played it well, me, well... I should have just called his final weak bet rather than re-raising, and then certainly I should have folded to his big re-re-raise.

After that it was all downhill. I got pot-sized bets called down all the way to the river by the aforementioned action player who was holding BOTTOM PAIR. He caught his second pair on the river. His hand: six deuce. Subsequently I got coolered multiple times. In the end, I walked away down a buy-in.

Not a catastrophe, to be sure, but there's no denying that the quality of my play suffered the second half of the night. I have to avoid being cocky and I have to avoid being frustrated and demoralized. This game is all about keeping your head. I failed to maintain my equanimity and I paid for it.

Online, well, I'm approaching a return to the level I started at four and a half months ago. That's not a downswing, that's a bloodbath. I need to go back to the drawing board and take a hard look at the way I'm playing online, because these results are unacceptable.