I have had the worst day of my young career so far. I'm down about 8 buyins today. UGH!!! The few big hands I had got beat by some really lose plays and shortstacking cockroaches. I had a guy four bet shove on a half stack with KJ suited against my AA. Of course he flopped the flush. It makes perfect sense, shove 50 BB's with king high, of course you'll get there. So it was just disgusting how bad the people were playing, but getting rewarded.
One of my nemesis players was playing 56% of the hands. His VPIP was 56%, that is ridiculously loose. He called raises OOP with just about any ace, any broadway hand, any pair, it was hilarious. And again, he would get there on the end. I know I was playing a little too aggressive, but I'm working on that. I need to idle it back a little and really focus on isolating players with a good hand, or at least a hand with some potential. But the big key is POSITION. I need to play position much better. Part of me keeps telling myself that I'm playing great, but just not getting there in the end or holding out the draws.
The sheer number of calling stations and players that always think you're bluffing is funny. You can have top pair with the nut draw, or a set and people will call you to the river with some really weak hands. Here's another great example. I had been somewhat active at the table, but really playing position well. I get 77 in late position with an early limper. I raise, the BB re-raises pretty small and the limper folds. I have the BB on AK or a smallish pair, maybe 66-JJ. He was the kind of player that pushed the size of the pot when he had AA or KK. But a little more than a min raise looked fishy. I call, and the flop comes Q-6-4 with two hearts. He bets into me, only smaller than his re-raise. Right there I knew he was weak, so I pushed him in and he called off the rest of his money with AK and only one heart. Of course he got there on the end when he spiked a king on the river. Just my luck tonight.
I just got done reading the new book from Negreanu. Some of the sections are pretty worthless, but the section written by Negreanu is GOLD. I have gotten away from my typical small ball approach as of late. I tried to impliment my game, but it just wasn't working. I would get drawn out on constantly. So I went to big ball approach, to the same conclusion. I need to find out what is wrong with my game right now. It is just really frustrating. I'll run up a good session, then suddenly hit cooler, cooler and have a losing session. In an earlier session I was up a good amount, and decided to leave the tables. I played out two of the tables to UTG. I get KK on one and AK on the other. On both tables I hit coolers. AK vs. KK and of course the case king hits the flop with no draws. And of course you can guess what KK was up against. YUP, AA. So a decent win turned into a small loss.
I'll stop ranting now. Here is what I am going to focus on for the next session. First, I need to really focus on hand selection pre-flop. Make sure to play stronger hands up front and look to isolate limpers or steal blinds when possible. Second, I need to idle back the aggression a little. I need to get back to my small ball approach. Think about it. Most players are passive with weak hands. So if you make smaller bets, they are more like value bets. You want players in there with weak hands against you. Instead of trying to play big pots in marginal situations, I need to make smaller bets, keep the pots small and look to play my hands in position. I think if I can do this, it will turn my sessions around. Finally, I need to think through the hands and analyze the kind of players in the pot with me. Don't try to run a marginal hand through a bunch of players. Don't go broke with one pair, and don't let overly aggressive players control pots. I'll figure out what I'm doing wrong and get back on track. I just need to get my head together.
On a final note, I got a JOB.....woohoo. So that's one thing done on my list of goals. Just a few more to go.
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