Poker Articles

So things have been horrible lately.  I will stay away from re-telling beats, but I am currently going through a phase where I just don't win, period.  It really is a horrible feeling, and I am sure many people have gone through the same thing and survived, so I am trying to stay calm about it.  Again, my hockey background has kept me calm about this.  When I was playing, I talked with a coach about some of the pro goalies in the game, and he told me to look at some of the best.  With few exceptions, they are on even keel all the time,  never too high and never too low; the best maintain that calm equilibrium at all times throughout their career.  So that's what I am focusing on--not letting the lows get me low or the highs get me high.  I'm trying to keep my head right in the middle about everything that is going on.

That said, tonight was the night of my weekly home game.  It's a great game of  2-5 NL, with a great group of people, and it is a game at which I am pretty confident I will walk away a winner by the end of the night.  Needless to say, I was really looking forward to the game tonight, so I could hopefully break out my funk.  Before tonight, I had even played a little Omaha online recently, just trying something new.  Well in my opinion, that game sucks.  I love the action, but man, it is stressful.  Maybe the fact that I had no idea what I was doing when I was playing had something to do with the stress, but who knows--I just wanted to try it.  After seeing hand after hand go to crap after a horrible turn or river, I swore the game off last night, saying I would never play it again.  I couldn't wait for this home game, knowing it was what I needed to get going again.

There is a Vietnamese player who occasionally plays with us, and he sat in the beginning of the night.  This guy simply makes peoples heads spin, so I try to avoid tangling with him real early in the night.  By the way, he recently won his WSOP seat at the local casino, so congrats to him if he sees this.  3 hands into the game, I pick up KK and made a raise, and sure enough he calls on the button and laughs.  I debate trying to put him on a hand, but its useless.  The flop comes 10 high with a twisted straight draw, which sadly fits right into his likely wheelhouse of hands, but I fire out anyway.  He calls, and luckily the turn brings enough of a scare card (making his straight more realistic) that I was able to get away from it.  But I already lost a leg--not a good start. 

A few hands later I get it back, and life is good, and then...  Some moron at the table decides we need to play F#&%#N Omaha.  Dude, I'm thinking, just let me enjoy this game, but no, Omaha it is.  Not only is it Omaha, it's Omaha with guys who have played poker the last 20 years and know  Omaha better than hold-em.  I am quite pissed at this point, and I will not get into how the game went, but so much for swearing the game off.  On a good note, I did learn a decent amount about Omaha, which was cool.  I still hate the game with a passion, though.

Anyway, I just thought that Omaha story would be entertaining to at least a few people who know how much I despise the game, and I guess the point of all of this was at the beginning.  Just before I wrote the blog, I had a talk with someone who reminded me you can't win everytime, and that's cool--I can deal with that I think.  And really, everyone that plays poker has to deal with this, and I'm sure some of you reading this may be going through the same funk.  I have been told it ends.  In fact, I have even told people that, so it better be true. 

I will say don't let the lows get you low, because that will affect your play, whether you notice it or not.  If you are worried about losing, you likely will.  When you let the lows get you down, your game will slip, and it probably won't even be noticeable.  You will make plays that you normally wouldn't make, had you not been emotionally attached to the results, and that in turn will bleed your bankroll.  So if it gets rough, take a break, re-evaluate things, talk about the game with people who have the experience you may not have, and as that wise man Frank the Tank said, "keep on truckin."