Moral shortcomings

Well, I discovered why I got blown out on the potential date I had. Besides the issue of my negative view of long-term relationships, it seems I also come across as a bit of a dodgy geezer - with poker apparently a major indicator of my moral shortcomings.

Well, screw you missy! It would have been poker winnings paying for your pina collada, you know!

Although, there won’t be so many poker winnings if I play like last night very often. I am disappointed in myself. I decided to have a good, proper session of two-tabling, but ended up playing like a dick. Quite simply, I wasn’t paying enough attention. I can get by at the same time as surfing the odd site or having the odd IM chat, but not if those things are taking most of my attention. I also threw far too many stupid bets out and tried to push some tiny edges. In short, I got cocky and need to slap myself down a little.

I lost $40 overall, and lost a coin-toss (21-19 in my favour) river for a $55 pot. But that hand summed up what I was doing wrong. I bashed my shortish stack all-in on the turn with only top pair, because I was convinced my opponent was on the flush draw. Fine, I was 21-19 favourite and thought I had some folding equity too; but these are not the sort of tiny edges I normally pursue, and I could easily have been wrong about his hand anyway. More than once I bluffed the river last night to get called down by medium sets, and this could easily have been another of those.

Oh well, at least I am catching the onset of cockiness/playing too many hands/bluffing too much nice and early these days. It is my recurring weakness after a good run (I have seen it described as ‘winner’s tilt’) and I can’t afford to let it set in for days on end as it has in the past.

Bah! Nothing makes me want to get back to the game more urgently than having a losing session.

Had a bit of a testy discussion with my mother last night. I think I should have just let her witter on as usual, but she was propounding the fashionable idea in Christian circles that George W Bush is the chosen candidate of God. (I had wondered why she was criticising John Kerry on the TV news over his hair and chin). I found my hackles rising and said some fairly harsh things about that idea. Oh well. Actually, I had a weird couple of years as a born-again Christian around the end of my teens, beginning of my twenties. Not the best period of one’s life in which to renounce sex outside marriage…