End-March Bad Beat Madness

It’s probably inevitable when constantly playing poker against people who have no idea what they’re doing that even though the odds are stacked overwhelmingly in your favour it can count for nothing. This was the case for me about a week ago.

After congratulating myself for finding a nice loose table at Party Poker’s $5 NLHE cash games, I settled down as usual to wait for the callers to hand over their money. But this night was not destined to run to plan. My first major hit came when my AQo was rolled by someone with J 6. It turns out my 4 x BB pre-flop raise and continuation bet when I hit my Q wasn’t enough to get the guy to fold because he hit his 6 on the flop. As we all know, a pair of 6s with Jack kicker is an absolute monster – particularly when you hang on to hit your J on the turn.

That hand set the trend for the night and I made the mistake of deluding myself into believing that at some point getting my money in as an 80% favourite was going to begin paying off. I rebought twice during the session, fell into the trap of playing a little more loosely than I usually do and, by the time I had closed down my Party Poker session, had severely eaten away at my hard-won March profits.

Fortunately I’ve clawed back a few dollars to finish March with a bankroll profit of 7.74%.