I Misremembered

So in the last blog I talked about the hand where my Aces got cracked 200BB’s deep. Didn’t look up the hand history at the time, was just recounting it from memory. Today I decided to post it on CP, mainly just for fun.

Turns out I actually held the Ace of clubs (I called it spades yesterday, but whatever). So the NFD was not possible. Now that I see that, I do recall thinking that at least I had the backdoor FD. Everyone thinks I played the hand super spewy, and of course I know I did. I’m not stressed about it (though I wouldn’t mind the few hundred extra I put in back). I just acted too quickly, I had that “winner’s tilt” mindset I was talking about, where I think somehow he shows up with JJ or KQs or a weird two pair which I counterfeit on the river. I mean, I played the hand terrible and it’s obviously a leak on a couple levels. But it’s pretty obvious. Just don’t do it again. Simple game.

But what I find interesting, blog-worthy even, is how my mind messed up the hand history to make it more palatable to me. Even though it’s still not good, it’s definitely not near as bad if the NFD is in villain’s range. Subconsciously my brain wanted there be a reason I would get it all-in in that spot, and so it altered things a bit for me. It’s also interesting to me that even though it’s a super spewy play, I found it worth posting on the forum. And I posted it with a tone that kind of expected people to see it as a cooler. Even though it’s very clearly not. I was in some sort of denial, or delusional state, or something.

There was a thread on CP a bit ago about what factors have caused the extreme upswing in the level of play online. Whether it was video training sites, coaching, forums, tracking software, whatever. I said the tracking software, and this experience really crystallizes why I think that’s the case. Without the software, I never go back and realize how I was misremembering the hand. It’s a small example, just one hand, but of course it applies to my skills (such as they are) at large. It would be extremely difficult to realistically assess my game without the tracking software. And without realistic assessment, how could I expect to get better (especially in a game that often seems to reward bad play and punish correct play)?