History repeated itself again tonight, as I again fell too much in love with a two pair, to my detriment and chagrin. This time, I lost to a flush. I could and should have backed off when the flush possibility showed up on the board. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. One thing that made me hang in was that the player I was up against had shown some erratic play up to that point. The loss of that hand took my chip stack down to $181, at which point I was essentially crippled. The only way out at that point was for lady luck to smile on me, and let me double up a couple of times. She didn't. I hit the felt about 5 or 6 hands after the big blow.
I had the discipline not to replenish my chips, but not the greater discipline not to have made the bad call in the first place. The more I play, the more I realize you have to be policing yourself all the time, and running a bullshit meter on everything you're thinking to yourself. It's all too easy to convince yourself to stay in a hand when you really have no business staying in it. You have to respect what the betting patterns of your opponents can tell you. I realize I don't do this enough. I rely too heavily on straight odds. The really great poker players are the ones who are able to fold very strong hands when the betting patterns of their opponents indicate they have better hands, odds be damned.
It's very good for me to get these doses of humility fairly regularly, where I lose $2,000 and am done for the night. As long as my long term trend line is upwards, I should treat these nights as great learning experiences. To really know your own weaknesses is a great strategic advantage; I'm sure that one of these days, I'll finally wise up and get gun shy about the two pairs I love so much. I should probably fold the next one I get purely on principle!
delta: -$2,000
balance: $266,279
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