I played an 11 hour session of 1/2 at the cardroom last night. We started at 6pm. I was stuck $850 or so at about 2am. At 5:00am, I slipped over into the black for $5 with a broadway straight on a 3-flush flop. I was emotionally done. I had an irrational desire to book a win.

"It's all one long session," my Vulcan side said. "At least play your one free hand before the blind. That's +EV."

My human side said, "Alright, but I'm folding if it's not aces."

I peeked down at my cards and found . . . aces. Two black ones.

Rats. I can't fold this.

A feeling of unavoidable doom fell on me. I had $1805 in play. Two people had me covered. I could feel the set and runner-runner gut-shot coming to beat me. I hated these aces. Maybe I could just pick up the blinds. So I made the biggest opening raise I've ever made in a cash game. $17 from UTG.

Surely no one would be foolish enough to call me . . .
Surely no one else will be foolish enough call me . . .
Rats.

Three of us saw the flop.
T 5 2

I bet out. They all folded. I increased my win by a factor of 8. I took a mental victory lap. The Ewoks danced in my head.

Is anybody really Zen about session results? Can I beat this? Maybe it's most realistic to just get the heck out when I feel the emotional tug.

When you are afraid to play aces it is time to cash out!

Honestly, your comment about the emotional tug is a key one. When you feel beat up and afraid, then you will play suboptimally. You varied your preflop betting pattern becuase of your fear. You would continue to play poorly if you stayed at the table. Whatever the reason, it was right to cash out and go home.

I'm big on session wins. I hate quitting when I'm down. I once had a streak going where I had one losing session out of 70 sessions.

That said, I think I'm getting a little better about leaving a loser if I feel good about my play. A couple of nights ago, I was playing a bit sloppy and found myself in a $350 hole. Hours later, it finished up being a $22 loss. While it was a little frustrating to play so long while losing money, I felt good about my play during the comeback and chalked up the session as a confidence boost.

Oh, and considering my kings ran into aces four times, I was pretty happy to basically break even. :-)

The most important thing to take away from a session isn't whether it was a win or loss. It's the examination of your play. If you feel that you did the best you could given the circumstances, there's no reason to feel down.

it's hard to leave down, but you need to just learn how to bite the bullet and do it.

It's one session. There wil be more, don't get tied up the moment of a down session...or really an up one...there will always be tomorrow.

- Jordan

heh.

Push preflop and you dont have to worry about anything.

cashing in for 1800 in a 1/2 nl game is crazy btw...

Say hello to my biggest leak.

When I do get stuck, whether it's beats, or being a donk. I get really weird about playing until I'm up or even.

And when I'm up, I play until I'm up big.

There's some times I sit at the table and I just hit everything, I'm reading everyone and coming over thetop and everything, and I've got stacks of red birds and there's not a man alive that can pull me from the table when I'm like that.

I've put in 30 hour sessions like that. I've put in 40 hour sessions where I've been stuck 1200 because I just can't figure out that it's not my night/day whatever. I've gotten it all in on the flop 5 times in one of those sessions with OESFDs and missed every single one.

Maybe it's because I'm LAGgy and my variance is higher, but, I refuse to give in to those losing sessions. It's not even me against the other guys at the table, but, me against the deck. It's a leak. I like to try and put myself on a time budget, "6 hours, no more," But, inevitably, it never happens.

Those nights have led to -800 losses, and 3k wins. But the 3k wins don't feel as good as the 800 losses feel bad.

I'm done rambling.

I believe I'm better at making decisions than my opponents. (That's why I play in the game.) After I'm all in, I can't make any more decisions and therefore have no overlay. So I don't want to be all-in. The way to not be all-in is to have as much money in play as possible.

The other requirement is a sufficient bankroll, of course.

I think if you played bigger blinds, you wouldn't have two call you preflop on a 8.5x bb raise.
I find NL games with low cap buyins to be very profitable in cardrooms/casinos and unprofitable online. People play super-tight online when they can only buyin for a bit, but in casinos when some dude knows he can only lose $100 on any given event, he's a lot more likely to gamble. Maybe you should buyin for less and give youself the chance to make some huge % profits.

+1 haha. That's what I was thinking.

I think the solution to this is only bring two buy ins to the game. If you lose the two buy ins. Something is not right with your play and you are probably not emotionally ready to buy back in.

I use this when I play live and has worked very well for me.

My problem is when I get up big, I leave the table. I start playing bad when I have a lot of money on the table.

How do you adjust your play when you're up big and have a lot of money on the table? You should keep playing the same, correct? considering it's a cash game?

I think you should play at least the same. I find that at a live table, I get more action after I've taken down some pots, especially if those takedowns were relatively consecutive. It will look like I'm on "success tilt" and am playing crap hands, particularly if I have just taken some down with mediocre holdings due others not raising, reraising, etc. If you're up huge, you can give yourself a little room to change around your table image as well: I've found some inexperienced tables will take you for a great player if you've only showed down premium holdings as winners and not give you action; play a couple cheap pots and showdown some junk (whether you catch or not) so you keep the chips coming your way.

[quote="bdams19"][quote=CobaltBlue]I'm big on session wins. I hate quitting when I'm down. I once had a streak going where I had one losing session out of 70 sessions.
heh.[/quote]
What? I finished a session a loser twice in September, once in October, and never in November. It was a good three months. :-)

I can't buy things with %.