If You Can't Spot the Sucker... Then You are the Sucker

First in a series documenting my successes and failures at my weekly poker game..

In January all of the scores from the last season of the weekly poker game that I play in were reset. Everyone was back to zero, and that made me happy. I had started up late last season and didn't really have a shot at finishing first for the year. But the new year changed all that, and I was ready to dominate in the rankings.

It's now been three weeks since the first new game of the season and I have no points or money to show for it. I've played flat out bad poker. The first two weeks I finished on the "bubble" (one person shy of points and a pay out), and tonight I busted first and early.

I was dealt two playable hands by most standards and did nothing with them (in fact the best hand that I was dealt I busted on). Everything else that I was dealt was either junk or a drawing hand.

It's safe to say that I am officially on "tilt."

In fact it feels like I've gotten worse since I've begun to play more and learn more about the game. When I first started playing I was loose and for the most part quite aggressive. I wasn't afraid to play marginal hands and take people to the river with them if I was on the draw. But now my game is almost completely gone. I don't have the ability to read my opponents, and I haven't been able to get those opponent's to stay along with me when I have the nuts.

Tonight I played a lot of the junk that I was dealt early and it cost me. When I was finally dealt my second playable hand of the night (pocket jacks) I was short stack at the table. I went all in when the flop showed nothing and was called by one player; she had flopped a set of 7s.

I know that I can play good poker if I put my mind to it, but everytime that I've sat down in the past few weeks I haven't kept my head in the game. I've missed tells and have either over bet or under bet the pot at critical times. My opponents can read me like a book and it's costing me. I have to change gears, be less predictable. I have to loosen up and find that zone that I was in for the last few weeks of last year.

It'll come back; I just have to learn to not force it.