Higher stakes do funny things to your thinking

Dove back in for another session. The good news is that I'm less intimidated by the higher stakes. I'm more comfortable now after playing some hands. Overall the play seems better. Half pot bets are more the norm instead of blasting away at maximum chippage. There are also more disciplined players as evidenced by a min-raise taking down the blinds pre-flop whereas the .01/.02 tables will get a cascade of calls for the same bet. The bad news is that I feel all growed up now and scoff at the paltry .01/.02 level that I left behind in the dust even though a full buy at .01/.02 is .70 and a short buy in .02/.05 is 1.00. I let my play degrade on the "little" tables. I paid off hands where I knew I was beat. I was getting too aggressive with mediocre holdings. I knew better too but somehow the cursor kept on clicking the bet and call buttons. Then I got sort of chase-ish when I opened up a second .02/.05 table. I didn't do too much damage but I was telling myself "Don't dig yourself in deeper!" yet I went ahead and took the risk. Overall I was down about $3 which is painful but manageable. I need to keep in mind how much work it took to grind out that money to get myself out of the cellar instead of throwing away chips in the kiddie pool.

Badly misplayed a hand on the .02/.05 table. Flopped TPTK and nut flush draw in a huge multiway pot. I turned the other nut flush draw so now I had a gutter to broadway, two nut flush draws, and two pair. So instead of shoving on the turn I just flat called. Blank on the river and it checks through to the button who shoves. It looked innocuous enough of a card so I ended up calling of the chips that I should have jammed in on the turn only to find out that the river made him his lower straight. Terrible play in what ended up being a $4.20 pot.

At one point one of the .02/.05 tables started playing poker roulette with multiway shoves pre-flop. Instead of stepping away from the variance machine I ended up not only sticking around but getting my chips in with KKQQ rainbow figuring that I was way good against their ranges. I was 29% in a four way pot so I was getting overlay on my money but the board missed me and I watch the $4 pot go in the wrong direction.

On the up side, I did get to play against Kenny Tran for a while. I noticed in the table listings that one of the tables had a red background making it stand out. I opened up the table and sure enough Kenny Tran was seated. I got on the waiting list in the #4 spot and eventually hopped on. Nothing too much to note in terms of hands except that he probably squeezed as much value out of his hands as possible getting others to call down light when he was good. The thing that really stood out to me though was that he was playing very disciplined. More disciplined than I was at .01/.02 after I graduated up to the big tables. Even though he plays stakes that I can't even fathom he sat down and still played a solid game at the smallest of microstakes. He easily could have donked off chips and just gone aggro on the whole table but he didn't and I need to learn the same level of control. Bring your A game regardless of stakes.