A losing streak, even a small one, can be heartbreaking in poker. Last night, at the Wall Street Game, I donated $300 to the ragtag group of players, and I was left wondering (particularly after my -$500 night at the Tuna Club) what went wrong. It must’ve been me. I should have been watching my opponents more carefully or playing a different style. But as I kept analyzing the situation, perhaps it wasn’t “all” my fault. That’s the thing with poker. It’s never easy to tell. So you either blame stupid luck, in which case you are ignoring your only chance of improving (i.e., focusing on yourself) or you blame yourself, which can also be harmful if perhaps it really was just bad luck.
I was about to write about hands last night that at first felt like bad play, but then, after analysis, appeared more to me as bad luck….but as I recalled some of the hands last night, I’m back in flux. Is it bad luck or bad play? Fuck if I know. And since I didn’t take notes, I won’t even try to recreate the hands here. Suffice it to say that I called down a player with top pair weak kicker and she rivered two pair (she flopped bottom pair, top kicker), but in hindsight, the board may’ve flushed anyway, so my call with TP was probably a bad one regardless of her luck. But then there was that other hand when I raised preflop with JJ, got 5+ callers, and then saw a decent bet from the first player to act on the 346 board with two clubs. I re-raised to isolate, with the thought that he was likely on a draw and was trying to with the pot outright. He had 34o though, and I doubled him up instead.
So, bad play or bad luck? I’m still not sure. I only know that I cannot affect bad luck, so I must work on my play, whether it is bad or not. There is always room for improvement.
Until next time, make mine poker!
