Whoops

Well... I wasn't PLANNING on playing in the Hoy last night. Nooooo! I was going to go to bed early. Foolish mortal, what made me think I could escape the neon clutches of Gamblor, the gambling monster?

Went out in some horrible position, which is a shame, because I felt ON. Held 1st for a good chunk of the 1st hour, and then found pocket Jacks. These were overpairs to the flop, the turn, and the river. There was a straight draw when the river hit, but I'd been betting the whole way, so I knew my opponent didn't have the straight. Turns out he WAS playing his draw, did NOT hit, but DID get his two pair on the turn and river. Crippled me. A few hands later I was all-in with ATd, A hit the flop, and the after the turn and river there were 4 clubs on the board, so the guy with the 7c knocked me out. Tres sucky, as the French say.

Played some cash on FCP as I watched the Hoy in the background. Left that game when I jumped into a 18-player $5 SnG with the newly returned Kat. Finished 5th when the top 4 paid. I regret nothing... except folding my K7o to a 3x BB raise when I was short stacked, because 2 7's hit the flop. But that's results-based anger, not decision-based. Fired up an FCP cash game again while I watched Kat finish in 2nd, and then called it a night... down about $60 on the night. These extended loss streaks can make one question whether slowly becoming a degenerate gambler is a good idea.

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I was reading Hoy's blog. He talks about the Poker books he's found helpful, and it just drove home how lazy I truly am. I have a shelf full of poker books... off the top of my head:

Harrington Vol I and II, Theory of Poker, Caro's Tells, Hellmuth's Play Poker Like the Pros, Lee Jones' Winning Low-Limit Hold 'em, Gordon's Little Green Book, and maybe a couple others. I have DoubleA's Pressure Poker on order after all the endless blogger recommendations, and I keep thinking I should pick up Super System (I or II) sometime... you know how many I've read cover-to-cover? None.

You know how many I've OPENED? Two. Sure, the stack is intimidating to any friends who see it just before a home game, but their knowledge is still trapped within their pages. What little I DO know is mostly picked up from playing, reading blogs, and running certain hands through odds calculators.

Why? Because these books are treated by me the same as any text books I've had to read. I've always been a terrible studier. Throughout school (especially University), my semesters would go like this: Do work that needs to be done, take notes in class, and just before the exam, crack open the text book and read it all the night before. This worked suprisingly well, and was often accompanied by me slapping my forehead and asking "WHY DIDN'T I DO THIS EARLIER?" As an Engineer, this wasn't the best way to spend a night... hundreds of pages of Calculus isn't exactly light reading.

So I guess I need some sort of poker exam. Maybe plan a trip to Vegas and force myself to study up before going. I mean, I'd read all those books NOW, but I'm too busy playing poker.