Another death spiral

I experienced another poker death spiral tonight. Very early on, I was up $500 on the strength of a full house, which was a good start. If I'd followed my own revised rules, I would have ended my session there, but I'd only played two hands and wanted to play some more.

I knew my night was headed south when I was dealt a king queen offsuit and couldn't win with a board of 4h Qh 6s 7s 9h. I lost to a set of fours, which had been slow-played masterfully. I had the dealer button on that hand, and was glad I checked the river; the set of fours was trying to check-raise me, but I looked at the pot and thought "That's big enough for me". It would have been $2,518, and I could have ended my night right there.

The tide was going out at that point, and it didn't come back like it did last time. My final hand of the night, I was dealt ace ten suited, had to go all in before the flop, and lost to a king high heart flush.

You have to have a lot of hubris to play poker, but you also have to have a lot of humility. Admittedly, it's a strange combination! Also, you must be brutally honest in your evaluation of your hands. The less you let emotion enter into the equation, the better. Looking at one of the lost hands I cut-and-pasted tonight, I see I played it very loosely. I realize now I was fooling myself, hanging around when I should have folded. You can't kid a kidder, but you can kid yourself a hell of a lot of the time! Sordid truth to tell, somehow I made the cardinal sin of holding out for a gutshot. I don't understand what I could have been thinking; more likely than not, I wasn't thinking much at that point in time! You have to keep a constant watch on your critical faculties as you play.

I'm not getting down, though. As the Governator said so memorably, "I'll be back!"

delta: -$2,000
balance: $275,198