In an earlier post, I talked about the play at the first table I played at Mohegan Sun on a recent trip to Connecticut. The good news is that the cards beat me and not my play. The bad news is that I would have liked to play longer.
After walking around a while and meeting up with my friend and playing the slot machines, I went back to the Poker Room. They were starting up a new $1/$2 table. I bought $100 in chips and took seat 4.
Players were 20- and 30-somethings. I was surprised that the play was so conservative. Mostly playing afraid to lose. The player in seat 3 was chatty and entertaining. His phone kept ringing… friends calling to meet up with him for the evening… He kept jumping up and promising he would play his last hand. After a while, he did. He was replaced with an older, non-talking player. Entertainment gone 🙁
I played for about an hour. Won a few decent pots, rarely seeing the river. I took advantage of the tight play once or twice and bet on all-out bluffs-and-won those too. Got beat good a couple of times too on the river!
Final Hand – Stupidest Call of the Day
Still shaking my head over this one…
Two people in the hand after the flop; the quiet player on my right and me. Flop is: 6 Q 7
Player to my right thinks and thinks, then calls enough to put me all in. I’m down to $35.00. I had a PR 7s. I figured he had a Q. I KNEW he had a Q… I turned to him and said, “So, you hit the Queen”, and he shook his head yes, and unbelievably, I called anyway! Huh? I knew he hit it before I asked! I could hear Mike Sexton saying, “Oh no! The loosest call in history!”
No sound reason for that call. After losing the hand and leaving the table, I was on tilt. So angry at myself for such a stupid call. I kept asking myself “What were you thinking?” I wasn’t going to let myself off the hook. I re-played it and re-played over and over. Here’s what surfaced–>My thoughts at the time were “Well, I’m going to have to go all in sooner or later in order to be able to stay and play.” <– Hummmm. Tournament thinking, not cash game thinking. I was measuring my $35.00 against my initial buy of $100.
So that was my real-life poker lesson: Don’t play cash games with tournament mentality! [Errr… I knew that… NOW I’ll remember it!]
Why had I done that? Because all I play online are No Limit Texas Hold’em Tournaments and Sit-n-Gos. Always tournament play.
How did I change that? Started playing No Limit Texas Hold’em cash games online. And my success with that? Well, that’s another post. Come back for that one on another day. You’ll be entertained, I promise.