Chris Halverson’s Blog

Due to my recent downturn, my bankroll is pretty low. Because of this, I’ve found that I’ve been playing scared. Despite being on a losing streak, I “felt” better when I had more of a bankroll. I just felt more confident all around. I felt I would win if I went into a pot. Now? Every time I move to click a button that will place money in the pot I glance at the dollar amount by my name and pause for a second. Even if I know I should do it, I hesitate, and in some cases, fold.

Playing scared probably cost me a decent sized pot tonight. I get dealt AdJd in late position. Two of us see the flop which comes down JcAs8h. Other guy bets and I just call. Yep, I have the top two pair and I just call. Turn doesn’t help, but he bets anyway and I again just call. River? Qh. He, of course, bets and I call again. What’s he have? Can you see this coming? QcAh. I get rivered. According to the Cardplayer.com Odds Calculator I was a 93% favorite at the turn. Ug. Now, looking back, I should have raised post-flop and tried to drive him out and get what I could. But no, I was more worried about losing than I was sure that I would win. Earlier in the session I lost out on a big pot when a straight draw possibility fell on the river. I had flopped a set (there was one overcard) and there was enough money in it to have to call. Bad beats? Yes. Could I have stopped them? Maybe. The point was that I didn’t give anybody any reason to get out.

I’m going to deposit some more money so that I can get the bankroll up to a point where I’m not scared anymore. If things go right (I’m confident they will), I’ll cash that part back out like I did last time. None of this is mortgage, grocery, etc. money, so it’s not the end of the world. The difference between now and when I started (and had a small bankroll) was that at the time I didn’t expect much. I almost expected to lose, although I hoped I would win. Now I expect to win, so when I lose it sucks.

The good thing? I still love playing. I get excited when I talk about it. I spend a bunch of time reading all the great poker blogs. I jump over to 2+2. I even wade through the cesspool that is RGP. I can’t wait to make a run down to the B&M to try playing live. The poker gods are testing me though. They’re not giving me much reason to want to stick around. They will lose though and soon they will, to quote The Fat Guy, BOW BEFORE ME.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2004 at 11:25 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.