I'm An Idiot

I've already shared the tale of my idiocy last night with a few people. I won't belabour the point too much here. I played live for the first time since Vegas last night at my local club. It's been so long that the guy running the place was shocked to see me again. $40 tournament and the last time I played I cashed... barely. This time I was determined to make the cash yet again. Instead I bubbled like a moron. I played a strong game, making a few stellar calls, isolation raises, stolen blinds, traps, hidden draws, and all that other fun stuff that makes one feel confident in their game again. Plus, for a $40 tournament, it's a pretty good group of players. I still think I'm better than most of them though.

Then I couldn't get away from a hand I KNEW was beat and crippled myself. I could have just taken a crowbar to my knees and been just as effective. At least it wasn't queens this time. After being crippled I pushed the last of my 1.5 M stack into a turned card I knew was beat on the flop. 1 mistake led to the other and I was done. Please children, heed my advice - LISTEN TO THE SCREAMING VOICE IN YOUR HEAD TELLING YOU TO FOLD.

I didn't bother to play the cash game after though, as I was pretty sure I'd just shove in the max buy-in on my first hand... or might as well have. Since I made it deep, I missed the Mookie, and instead played a couple $6 Turbos. Went out 6th in one, and took down the next with authority.

So far, my confidence in my game is much improved. The sample size is obviously FAR too small to throw caution to the wind, but I'm getting my game back. There is still work to do in the middle and middle-late, and I need to final table a few more tournaments to test out my late game, but I'm getting there. There's nothing like making the right read and not listening to it to build one's confidence in reading opponents. Sometimes that's valuable in and of itself.

My cash game however is in sad shape... but that's another story for another time.