Fold, fold, fold

What do you do when the card go cold? It sounds like a bad country/western song.

Last night I played in my regular Tuesday night home game, which consists of a NLHE tourney and then $3/ $6, limit Hold Em. I played what I am sure was a solid game staying ahead of the average chip stack for the first four levels, and then started to get blinded down a little as the cards cooled off when I received KQ suited one off the button.

The blinds were at 600/1200 and I raised to 2000 and was called only by the big blind. The flop was K75 (two hearts) and since this was about the best flop I could hope for, moved all-in with my last 3500, getting called by the flush draw, A3. The turn was a harmless 3, the river was not a heart so I felt great doubling up…except it was another 3.

Runner, runner 3?

The big blind had me more than covered so going after the flush draw was completely appropriate, but to lose to two threes was a brutal way to end.

But that’s the way the evening went for me. It wasn’t a pleasant night of cards. I rarely have a losing limit session but last night was probably the worst run of cards I’ve ever had in a live game. Once last year on line, I received 116 hands in a row without playing one hand. Last night I folded every hand, except my big blind, for an hour and twenty minutes!

I did not have suited connectors, two face cards, a pocket pair, suited ace, or anything else I could even talk myself into thinking it might turn into something on the flop. Even if I had played every hand I was dealt, regardless of how sad a starting hand it was, not one single hand would have won. Not one. When I folded K5 and two 5’s came on the flop, the winner turned up a suited A5. All losers.

To make it worse, the player to my immediate right was playing any suited cards, any king, and any ace. Top pair, top kicker would have paid to the river, but I only was involved in two hands with him the entire night. He was begging to give his money away and I couldn’t get a dime.

I was down about $70, almost all blind money, before I started to win a hand here and there. Then my pocket 7’s flopped a set, but lost to a pair of 8’s that chased into a straight on the river, and then my pocket 6’s flopped an open ended straight, filled up on the turn, and lost to a full house when the board paired on the river.

I ended the evening down $98, but didn’t feel bad at all about the way I played. Others have lost a lot more in a lot less time and if I only consider the lost week as one big game, I’m still in the black.