Another month, another lesson learned

All the way up until Saturday night, I wasn't sure if I was going to be playing poker for a rare Sunday afternoon session because work has been kicking my ass and my weekends have been so full this month that I've not had time to really rest and re-charge.

A day and most of a night watching movies at Lyss' on Staten Island with the Elf and later Joaq provided me with the easy decision because as I rationalized it, if I was already going to be leaving SI on Sunday and I had already set aside the money in my budget, I might as well head all the way up to Doc's in Harlem, right?

Because we were five-handed until our sixth arrived, we tried to do some orbits of dealer's choice. I drew the Ace of Spades, so I picked Pot Limit Omaha and spewed a lot of my chips in a hand that I probably misplayed in my enthusiasm to play something other than Hold'em. Vin, Lyss, and later Joaq each chose Hold'em and the Doc chose 7 Card Stud but that didn't help matters either because as I mentioned on Twitter, I was very card-dead for most of the night being handed J-x or Q-x or unsuited low cards. I bled away a lot of chips chasing straights in Omaha and being caught out by Lyss' amazing lucky streak that would last for most of the night and give her my unofficial Golden Horseshoe award.

By the time Ron arrived, I decided to re-stack early, giving me around $24 to play with for the rest of the evening. However, the cards didn't fall my way until either slightly before or after the dinner break. Because we started around 4:00 pm, Lyss decided that she was going to leave around 10:00 pm, so we ended up playing while we ate, and I even dealt for a few hands so that Doc could finish his dinner.

Eventually, I found A-K off-suited and luckily beat Ron to a good sized pot where I don't think I had anything but flipped up on showdown where it was revealed that yes, I did have the nuts with Aces and 4s, I think. Heading into the last hand, it was only either 10 cents or 30 cents to see the flop and I found 5-4o. Again, it was the last hand, so I decided to play it and the flop came out 2-3-7, and there was no flush help. I think I was first after the button, so I checked, then followed the betting, not even daring to think that I was drawing to the low straight. The turn was the Ace of spades, Doc fired out a somewhat medium-size bet and I called, which pushed everyone else out. River was was the Jack of clubs, I forgot what we did, and we ended up splitting the pot when Doc flipped up his 5-4 suited.

As a result of my poor play, I ended up losing only around $2.75, which is not great, but it's not terrible either. Looking back, I realize that I really need to just be patient and trust that the cards will eventually come to me because when I was card-dead, I went into pots with some of the J-x or Q-x and over committed when I should have just folded. That kind of play is boring but it also keeps you from becoming a donkey.