The luck continues

I played 4-8 at Casino Arizona last night for about 4 hours. I am waiting for the cards to turn on me because they have been ridiculously good for the last 2 weeks. I even put my name on the 6-12 list when I got there but they called me for 4-8 first so I settled into my comfort zone.

Sure enough my cards sucked and when I did get something good like A-Q I would raise, and the flop would miss me entirely. I was proud of myself for not getting too frustrated and I stayed patient even though I had to dig twice and ended up having $300 in play.

Suddenly the tide began to turn. I was dealt pocket Aces a couple of times and they held up. Then pocket 9's which turned into a set. Then I had J-4 on the big blind and flopped two pair. What I couldn't believe was the woman to my left who raised me twice. I was hoping she didn't have a set, and I was right it was just 5s and 4s for two pair. Suddenly I was up $37 for the evening after being down $240. The game was broken up and suddenly the players got tired of losing money. Unfortunately the called our table for a splash pot right after we broke up so we lost the chance for that.

Last night was a good example of one of the things I am struggling to learn about this game. One of the books I read says that all of your poker is just one big session. There should never be win goals or loss limits when you play. For the most part I agree with that statement. I used to base my sessions on how bad the other players were at my table. Win or lose, if the players at my table were really bad, I wanted to keep playing because I figured the cards would turn for me eventually. This got me in trouble once when I went on a big winning streak early and I thought I might be able to bust out the whole table. Unfortunately, my cards started to go cold, combined with a couple of bad beats. I went from $300 up to $200 down over 4 hours as I waited for the tide to turn. Now my theory is that I will ride the winning streak as long as the cards remain good. If I start to get bored and/or my starting cards go bad, I will just get up and walk away if I am way up.

If I am going bad, I will usually put a time limit on my self where I will tell my self that I will play for one more hour and if it doesn't change, I'll leave. Thankfully I tend to win more than I lose so I don't face the real tough decisions too often.