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Bad
Streaks
By Chris Goudey
Posted: 5:00 am PDT 2006-10-12 |
Courtesy Of Internet Casino and Poker Room at WagerWeb.com |
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I'm currently in the middle of one
of the worst slumps of my poker career, and it seems I can't catch a card and all my
opponents are catching whatever they need to beat me. If I hadn't played for so many
years now, I'd start to wonder if things would ever turn around.
Here's a perfect example of the way my luck has gone lately. I made the final table
of a pot-limit Hold Em tourney last night, which made me happy because it's the first
final table of a large-entry (this one happened to be 150 people) tourney I'd made in 2-3
weeks. Normally I make the final table of a tourney that big about a third of the
time, and it had probably been about 25-30 tourneys since I'd made one. So I get to
the table and I'm in a solid third place. The top two players are easily catchable,
and there are two very short stacks. At this point the blinds are still low enough
that I can play my normal tight-aggressive style, so I sit back and wait. The two
shorties get eliminated fairly quickly by one of the stacks below me, so now I'm sitting
in fourth with 7 players left.
The first hand after we get to 7 players I pick up KK on the button. One of the
players with less chips than me raises ahead of me, and he was definitely not a player I'd
think would have AA in that spot so I immediately re-raise. After two more re-raises,
we're all-in. I was definitely correct in my assumption that I had him, as he flipped over
AQ off-suit. We go to the flop and I get excited as it comes K-7-9 rainbow (all
different suits). I figure I've got a set now and I'm money. Well, the poker
gods reared their ugly head, and if you play a lot you know what's coming next. Yep,
here comes the J on the turn and of course, the 10 on the river to give him the
runner-runner straight. To his credit, he said he was sorry and I couldn't really
fault him because he was pretty much pot-committed after the re-raises pre-flop.
So now I'm the short stack and the next hand, unbelievably, I pick up KK
again. Again, the same guy raises ahead of me, and I re-raise all-in. This time
he has AK, and then two of the players after me say they folded an A so he has one out
(card left that can let him win) if he doesn't hit a straight or flush. We go to the
flop and it doesn't help either of us, the turn is a blank, and then don't you know, the
lone A comes on the river. In consecutive hands I've lost my whole stack to a
runner-runner straight and a one-outer.
My best showing in a tourney in weeks and I have to go out like that. I did make a
profit in the tourney (ended up with 5 times my buy-in), but to have played things
perfectly and still lose just makes me sick.
This is the perfect example of the way my recent play has gone, just not at the
final-table level, and is a true sign of a bad streak. Now, as I have been constantly
telling myself, poker is all about making correct decisions, and I can take solace in the
fact that it's just the luck factor that's beating me, not the fact that I'm playing
poorly. I pride myself in the fact that I rarely go on tilt and can fold 10 hands in
a row after a killer beat if I don't get the cards.
What smart poker players know is that with the thousands of hands they play, they are
going to run into streaks like this. The key is to not get too down on yourself and
keep plugging away. Sometimes it does a player some good to take a couple of days off
to recharge the mind-set. I've done that twice in the past 2 weeks and I thought it
would help, but as you can tell, it didn't. The thing not to do is to keep playing
when you're frustrated or tired. I always play better earlier in the day when my mind
is fresh. If I've had a bad day, I always want to fall into the trap of playing late
at night to catch up, but it ends up just compounding the problem because I'm tired.
Here's the great thing about poker, and gambling in general, however: Just as soon as
you get done with this horrible streak, you could run great for the next month. All
the suckouts you've been receiving could turn into missed draws and double you up time
after time. A profitable player is one who is going to ride these streaks as long as
they can and make the winnings they receive during those times outweigh the losses they
take during the bad runs.
Anyway, it's early in the morning, I've had a good night's sleep and hopefully today is
the day I get over this bad streak and start the run of a lifetime! |
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