Getting Off The Mat

Few things bother me quite as much as constantly losing to the same friggin guy at the table. The guy in the 2 seat had a VP$IP of damn near 80%, and the only freaking time he'd hit a hand is when I was in it.

Infuriating.

That being said, I did manage to take money from the rest of the table, and the aformentioned guy was certainly paying everyone else for his indescretions, though he was on a legendary tear for a while, going up as much as $80 he finally got his come-uppins.

Holy crap was that a run-on sentence. Oh well. Onward.

I'm now back to where I was before the huge slide of a few days ago. It seems in the last few days the shorthanded tables have changed, but the numbers don't bear that out. The players are just as loose/aggressive as ever, so that leaves two possibilities; my play has changed or my cards are cold. I did a little research.

Last month I played 1,930 hands of $1/$2 (6 Max). For those hands, my VP$IP was 29.22%, I saw the flop from all hands 42% of the time (27% when not in the blinds). I won $ when seeing the flop 29% of the time... I'm not sure why that would be important, but there it is. In any event, I won at showdown 61% of the time. My aggression factor is 0.91

This month so far, I've played 1,221 hands of $1/$2 (6 Max). My VP$IP is 27%, I saw the flop 41% of the time (25% when not in a blind). I won $ when seeing the flop 29% of the time. I won at the showdown 60% of the time. Aggression factor? 0.91.

A model in consistancy. Clearly my play has not changed, yet last month I was on an incredible tear of almost 13BB per 100 hands, whereas this month so far I'm at 3.24BB/100 hands. Nothing to be complaining about, to be sure, but before today, that number was much, much worse. Variance is a bitch.

So, it looks like I've hit a slower patch of cards. This is, surprisingly, encouraging. It means that even with reletively suck ass cards, I'm still able to scratch out a meaningful profit. I've also learned a few things.

- You can still fold in a shorthanded game and win.

- Even though you're seeing people playing any two cards to the river and you really really want a piece of that cash on the table, it doesn't allow you to play as loose as them.

- Don't bring a knife to a gunfight.

The point of the last point. You get dealt JTs. Naturally, you raise it up, and naturally, you're called 4 ways to a flop of 67T all of a suit you don't have. You call down the 1 bet (or better, raise) with 4 still in and the turn comes a Q. It's bet around to you again... You look around the table and your notes and notice that these are typical "play any two" kind of people. There's a decent, but not huge pot in there, and you know that you're going to see a showdown.

Do you really want to pay at least 2 more BB with this hand? Yeah, your hand MIGHT be good given the crap these jokers will call down with. The temptation is maddening.

Off to get some food and head on to the office again for more +EV goodness.

The next time you think you've had a bad day at work, just remember it could be worse. Welcome to my nightmare.