Schooled

I went up against Alan for the semifinal match in the HUC5. And I got thoroughly schooled. He took the first two games pretty easily. Then, we weren't sure whether or not we were doing a best of 5 or 3, so we played again, and he took that one down fairly easily as well.

I lost for a couple of reasons. One, the dealer was giving him all of the cards. I hardly got any pairs or strong cards, and the cards I was getting just weren't connecting. The results were partly due to the fact that it was Alan's day. When I took pairs to battle against his draws, his draws won out. When I took a draw to battle, I couldn't catch. My low pairs hit overcard flops, and my big pairs would lose to turned 2-pairs, etc.

But it's not all about the cards, and to his credit, Alan played a strong, tough game. I could never get a solid read on him. He would show down enough winning hands that I couldn't tell if his river bets were value bets or steals. It paralyzed me to the point that I was reluctant to try & bet him off of hands after the flop. Mentally, I was taken out of the game pretty early, and the combination of being card dead, low stacked, and up against an admittedly stronger opponent was just too much for me today.

So good luck to Alan. I was very much bitter & frustrated afterwards, and I took it out on Alan afterwards with some slightly snide remarks, but I wish him the best & I'm pulling for him to take this down. In the meantime, I guess I await the loser of Lucko vs. Jordan for a 3rd place battle?

__________________________________________________________________________________

Speaking of school, I'm going back to school starting tomorrow. Not full time or anything, but I'm enrolled in a class with the University of Washington's extended learning program, a Human Resources certification class. It's paid for by my company & it's a great resume enhancer, and it'll definitely help me advance in my current position. The downside: it's every Monday & Wednesday night from 6-8:30pm. So not only will I be absent from any blogger games for a while (yes, I do show up every now and then) but it means that I won't be able to play much poker for the next couple of months. Between the class, homework, and sticking to an exercise plan every Tuesday & Thursday, my week is already booked. So if you notice a dropoff in my posts for the next couple of months, now you know why.