A taste of felt

Had a rough, rough night at the casino yesterday. Went there to play 1$/2$ NLHE and came back home with empty pockets. With hindsight I should have left the table after about an hour of play. I was already a loser by then, but the fact that I was not comfortable at the table should have sent me signals that this was not a good time to play there and I could have salvaged something at least. Guess that's part of the learning process, know when to leave a dry game.

The whole evening I had borderline hands. Like I raise from early position with pocket Jacks and get 4 callers (already a bad sign). Flop comes A-K-Q... what am I to do here? There's no way none of the pre-flop callers has hit that flop. So I check and then fold to a bet from a late pos player. A bit later I open raise from early position with pocket fives to get a call from a shortstacking rock. Flop comes 8-8-3 and I figure that if he has a hand like two overcards I could get him to fold by making a continuation bet. I fire for about two thirds of the pot and he re-raises me. After that raise he was basically commited to throw the rest in on the turn. I muck my fives and keep on bleeding my chips away.

Oh well... life goes on. Time to lick my wounds before I go back to that battle.