They aren't all going to be winners.

Apparently, they can't all be winning sessions. I'm not bulletproof at the poker table - and I wasn't even drinking today. Usually booze is the cause of my Superman Syndrome, but I digress..

Early in the two hour session at the $25 NL table, I called a min raise from the semi-shortstacked cutoff out of the BB with an offsuit KoJack. Flop is J62-rainbow, just as pretty as you please. Here's where the mistakes start. I check, preflop raiser checks. He hadn't shown himself to be aggressive, so I should've bet into him. The ace on the turn pissed me off, because I knew I had just given him a free card that hurt me. So I bet into him. WHAT?!? Use your freakin' head, and cut your losses. Check and fold like the smart guy you (usually) are.

But I wasn't done with my mistakes. He raises me, all-in, for another 2 bucks and change. And I call. For the love of all that his holy, aren't you a timely folder? Fold, save your money. River was a blank, and his AT soooted was a winner. After that fiasco, I was at $16 or so of my $25 buy-in.

As an aside, I'm starting to wonder if my thoughts of making every session a winning one are adversely affecting my play. It seems like I play smarter when I'm up a few dollars than when I'm down a few. I press more and hope more when I'm down. I need to cut that out. Think dispassionately and play the stoic, intelligent, ego-free poker of which I'm capable.

The fun part of the session follows the multiple screwups, and the cold cards that followed. It's as if the poker gods told me to calm down and start thinking. So on to the fun part... I usually dislike shorthanded tables. Ours started winnowing down, until there was just 4 and then 3 of us. And my play picked up significantly, as did the stack in front of me. I was actually playing tough, sneaky shorthanded poker. It felt good to do well in an area where I thought I was weak. I climbed back over the $25 mark.

The table filled back up, and my stack was whittled down by second-best cards and flops that missed me by a mile. T9 of diamonds on the button, plenty of limpers, nobody raises? A62, all black. WHOOOSH. (that's the sound of the flop whistling by me as it misses.) So I was languishing at about $16 and change, getting a little tired of folding Q4's when I pick up JJ in early position. SmartGuy to my immediate left calls my 3x BB raise, as do several others. Ooh, nice pot building. Flop is a pretty 862, two clubs. I lead with a pot-sized bet, and SmartGuy bumps it up with a healthy raise, putting me all-in. It's folded to me. Brain sez, "Flush draw would've just called there. Set of 8's or 6's. The chances of him having an underpair to you are too low. Time to fold. Save your last 7 dollars and go do some chores or something." Fingers click "call". SmartGuy played his KK brilliantly, and took the pot. I exited right after that hand. I figured it was time to put poker aside. (Which perhaps explains why soccer was so fun tonight, even though we lost 2-1.)

This hurts to type, but it won't be the last time... $25 in, $0 out, -50BB, two hours.