Humility wins

I dropped down another $65 on Monday night, mostly in hands where, at the river, I looked at my situation and said to myself "Self, that guy's been playing like he's hit his set/straight/flush since the flop/turn. Your measley two pair isn't gonna do it. He's got you beat, Self." And then I say to myself, "Nah. Two pair's good," and call. There's not a lot of bluffing at the $2/$4 or $5/$10 tables.

At one point on the $2/$4, my JJ won $32. The very next hand, I got JJ again and lost $30. Sigh.

Tuesday night, however, I dropped myself back down to the $0.50/$1.00 table, and played while catching up on the last week of Fark.com. For the most part, I only played premium hands, even folding QT offsuit pre-flop on the button facing a single raise from middle position. After about two hours of play, I ended up ahead $25. My first positive real money night in weeks.

It'll be a long road back to those glory days of November when I was having $150 and $200 nights. Somewhere along the line, I think I began to expect, nay, deserve(!) to win a lot -- two pair's good, right? -- and that was my downfall.

Smart, conservative play is what I did last night, and what I need to continue doing. Things like consulting the pot odds chart from Gary Carson's Complete Book of Hold 'Em Poker in marginal situations. Things like making notes like "whirlyjim raised pre-flop with AK off. whirlyjim raised pre-flop with QQ." Things like deciding, more often than I have been, that if a player is betting like he's got the six to make the inside straight, he probably does.

On another note, some folks (hi, Bill and Kevin!) have recommended Doyle Brunson's Super System to me. I need to pick it up from the library on the way home tonight.