Doomswitch

One really can't explain to a non-poker player, the frustration felt when trying to climb out of a bad run of hands.

This isn't me suddenly facing better competition, this is the deck being set up to make me lose money over and over again. I played 575 hands tonight, with 4 tables humming along pretty well. I think I was 3bet something like 20 times. Not by crazy 3betters, just by people with hands. And when you're raising 15% and can only continue with like 4%, then you'll be folding to 3bets a bunch. And I was.

One stretch of hands explains the downswing perfectly - I made an opening raise on each of my 4 tables in a brief period. On one table, I had 66, was called in position, and check folded a 9-ten-jack flop. On table 2, I raised ace-jack from middle position and was 3bet. I folded. On table three, I raised jack-nine suited and was 3bet. I folded. On table 4, I raised pocket kings and won the blinds.

No action with a real hand, facing aggression when I didn't. Like they could see my cards.

On, and I wasn't dealt aces one time in 575 hands, but I was dealt pocket twos 6 times. That's pretty hard to do.

My big hand losses were top set, all in on the flop vs. a nut flush draw, lost. I had someone call a squeeze with 68 offsuit and river a gutshot straight against me (I had top pair and paid off a big river bet because of a high aggression factor). I played ace-queen top pair slowly out of position (pot control) and let the donk hit two pair on me. And finally I squeezed with jacks and had the 65/5 donk check shove on my cbet when the board came king-ten-six.

Still loving my stats this month. 16/12 with a 3.7% three bet and a 5% squeeze. But variance has caught me - I'm down 2 1/2 buy ins now on the month - a big number when you only play a few thousand hands per month.

Like I said, frustrating.