Greed and Grind

I started off the night in my normal 1K guarantee. This particular night, there was only 16 people. I was playing good as well as getting cards... People were rebuying like crazy... We got to the last hand before the 1st break and last chance to rebuy. Hand went like this:
The blinds are 100/200 and I am sitting at 5523 in chips. I am in MP and get AJs. 1st player goes all in (1110 chips), 2nd person goes all in (2040 chips), I call, and the next player goes all in (3600 in chips) and I call the remaining 1560. Unfortunately, at this site, that don't turn over cards in all in situations so this is what I saw:
Flop 244 (1 diamond).. Turn J... River... A... I took down the monster pot. The only other hand that I knew of was AQ so I did suck out on him.
So that gave me 14573 in chips and a pretty big chip lead. This is where the story goes south. I bullied for a little while and it worked.. getting my chips to over 20K. Blinds are now 300/600 and I get J8s in SB.. folded to Button who raises to 1200 and I defended my SB. Flop comes 845 (1 diam). I check and button goes all in for 5400. I had top pair... did he just have 2 over cards? I called... diamond on turn but no help on river... and button turned over QQ. That hurt. After thinking about it, that was a terrible call. A few hands later.. Blinds 400/800 and I have 13737 in chips... we are down to 7 people and top 3 pay. I am in 3rd place. I look down at KdQc in the BB... MP calls and SB calls. 7c7hKs is the flop. I check and so does everybody else.. Turn.. 5c.. SB checks and I bet out 1800 into the 2400 pot and get called by MP. River.. 3c... OK.. scare card.. I bet 3000 and get raised all in 12291. I think (but not for very long) and I called... and guy turns over nut flush. I can't believe how bad I played my last hand as that put me out in 7th place.

So the topic of the day is Greed. The two hands above showed my greed. I was too anxious to eliminate players and didn't take the needed to time to think these situations out. Greed made me get away from my game and cost me a pretty big cash in the tourney. The classic warnings signs were there on both hands and I chose to ignore that with my site on the prize as opposed to the situation at hand. Hopefully, I learned a valuable lesson. Could they have been bluffing? Sure.. I did have top pair in both... but I should have seen the signs.

Next up.. Party 5/10. Again I was not getting any cards; but I rememember my post from a few days ago and kept being patient and waiting for the cards or the right opportunities to make my move. I haven't been using Gametime recently to force me to keep focused on the table(s) at hand. I usually just play 2 tables so it is not too hard to keep things straight. By the way, I had 29 pocket pairs tonight and did not hit a set on any of them with the sole exception of my JJ hitting the set on the river... bad timing.. as I was drawing dead to somebody's full house. I also hit a nut flush on the turn to lose to a full house on the river. That's the bad news. The good news is that after 401 hands, I ended up $117. The below hand helped out:


***** Hand History for Game 2238677734 *****
$5/$10 Hold'em - Monday, June 20, 23:06:49 EDT 2005
Table Table 34813 (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 8
Seat 9: wilwonka ( $182.5 )
Seat 3: msnyc ( $327 )
Seat 2: pkala69 ( $430 )
Seat 10: pstate67 ( $343.5 )
Seat 1: demons9 ( $601.7 )
Seat 7: SilvernGreen ( $185.62 )
Seat 6: elb76 ( $283 )
Seat 5: Dragon3 ( $100 )
wilwonka posts small blind [$2].
pstate67 posts big blind [$5].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to wilwonka [ 7h 9h ]
CllngStation has joined the table.
demons9 folds.
>You have options at Table 34594 Table!.
pkala69 calls [$5].
msnyc folds.
elb76 folds.
SilvernGreen folds.
sammyq has joined the table.
wilwonka calls [$3].
pstate67 raises [$5].
pkala69 calls [$5].
wilwonka calls [$5].
** Dealing Flop ** [ Jh, 8h, 2s ]
wilwonka bets [$5].
pstate67 raises [$10].
pkala69 calls [$10].
Dragon3 has left the table.
wilwonka calls [$5].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Th ]
wilwonka bets [$10].
pstate67 raises [$20].
pkala69 folds.
Octane has joined the table.
wilwonka raises [$20].
pstate67 calls [$10].
** Dealing River ** [ Qh ]
>You have options at Table 34594 Table!.
wilwonka bets [$10].
pstate67 calls [$10].
wilwonka shows [ 7h, 9h ] a straight flush, queen high.
pstate67 doesn't show [ Jc, Kc ] a pair of jacks.
wilwonka wins $137 from the main pot with a straight flush, queen high.

You gotta love the straight flushes.. although the Q on the river scared me. It turned out that it didn't matter as he only had KJ. Have I mentioned that I really hate KJ.

Anyway, 401 hands in 2 hours and 45 minutes for $117. On the surface I was thinking to myself... self.. you only have $117 to show for yourself after almost 3 hours... and then the logical part of me spoke up. 401 hands in 2h45m for $117 is 4.25BB / hr. That's $42.50/hr. Who am I kidding? If I can't be happy with that, then I have a problem. That seems to be over riding theme with things today. You are always looking for the big score... when Grinding it out over the long run is where you are going to make your money.

So the takeaway for today is on two subjects. Never let Greed make you lose site of the current situation. It's too easy to look to the future and lose site at the present to where you make mistakes that end up costing you (even though they are staring you in the face).... and.... Grind... Play the cards that are dealt to you... be happy with a steady return on your investment. Keeping your eye on the plan will help diminish those "meltdown" days and put dollars in your pockets.

Today is Tuesday so of course I won't be playing... ha.. see earlier post.