Poker for dummies 101

Last night I learned a very cheap lesson in how not to play poker. It isn’t the money that I lost that bothers me (because it wasn’t really much) it is more the fact I couldn’t win a hand for the life of me. I must admit last night I did not get very good cards, however it was my play when I did finally get a decent hand that is what I am disappointed with. I was so desperate last night to actually play a hand that when I finally got one I played it like I would never see another one. This caused me to over bet second best hands on the table and significant chips because of it. Also I think I was used to our usually format of tournament style holdem instead of the cash games we were playing last night. Overall though the big issue was that I was just off my game, I wasn’t playing smart. Here are some things that I did wrong:

• Over bet second best hands
• Got frustrated from getting too many bad hands that I started playing mediocre hands
• Stopped playing my game and rationalizing hands

Some nights you don’t get many hands, so when you do get a decent hand you have to play them right. Last night didn’t get many good hands, but when I did I played them very wrong. One thing to my defense though, I got beat with a lot of bad breaks. Whenever I had a REALLY good hand it seemed that someone always had the 1 up on me. However I think by the betting this was quite evident, I was just too worried I wouldn’t see the hand again that I didn’t seem to pay attention to who else was in the game. We shall see next week if I am back on my game or not.