Should Have Kept My Mouth Shut

It was Gary Player who famously said 'The more I practise, the luckier I get.'

By applying Gary's theory, I have deduced that I can't be practising enough. Though perhaps I have only myself to blame, since I recently taunted the poker gods with my observations on how bad Tribeca players are.

As I observed at the time, pride comes before a fall, and quite a drop it's been.

The frustrating thing is, I've been generally playing well(see below for one aberration), not getting tilty, and making steady gains, only to see them demolished in a succession of mega pots.

The abbreviated highlights for the weekend so far:

- All in pre-flop AA v KK, K on flop (81% favourite)
- All in TT v 77 on a 9 high flop, 7 on river (88% favourite)
- Multiple instances of flopped set v bigger flopped set (what are the odds on us both flopping sets?!)

Or, to express it differently. My losses for the weekend matched the three biggest pots I lost. In two of which I was better than 4/1 to win when the cash went in, and in the third I flopped second set v top set.

Which isn't a bad beat, but is pretty unfortunate. Long term getting it in with a flopped set has to be a winner. Particularly when you note how many people cannot fold overpairs in any situation.

When you have two players in one night apologising for how lucky they got, and seeming to be sincere, it's a sign things aren't going so well.

One of the apologisers was KK guy from the hand above, who proceeded within about an hour to quadruple through in a series of big pots where he hit the flop, and as he pointed out himself 'some people just can't fold'.

One hand I am annoyed with myself over came towards the end of this run, when I raised with AK and got one caller. Flop AKT, and my standard bet was raised all-in for a big overbet.

The obvious worry here is QJ, or perhaps TT, but equally I've seen people make that move this weekend with A3, in the genuine belief they are ahead. I've also seen the same move made with a complete bluff - and anyway, I've still got a slender number of outs if I am behind.

Of course he DOES have QJo, and my outs behave in a statistically correct manner by failing to appear. Sigh. At least he was one of the smaller stacks at the table.

What makes this hand even more frustrating is I'd dodged several treacherous situations previously, including putting down AA to a guy who thought Q8 was gold - as indeed it was when he turned trip 8s.

In no fold em Hold Em, it really is vital to catch cards. It's even more vital to have them hold up when you do. Of course it's all about the long haul, tortoise and hare, etc. but sometime this game can make that long haul feel more than a little tortuous.