I pay attention to what is on the board to see if maybe I am playing too tight. But, for the first 100 or so hands, not a single hand would have held up even if the hand ended on the flop.

My first playable hand was a 1000-to-1 disaster. Got away fairly cheap when my 8-8 turned into a set on the flop. I had position, but a player was betting hard into me all the way. My initial read was he had a hand like A-K, so I am smooth calling him when he paired his Ace on the flop.

The turn was a 7 and the river was a 7. It is hard to put someone on quads, but I felt that my boat was no good. Fortunately, the player chose to check the river hoping I would bet it for him and come over the top. I checked behind. My opponent was holding 7-7. Ouch.

The next playable hand came an hour later: suited connectors. A few players limped in and I saw a free flop that brought a straight draw. I call all-in to an overpair – mainly out of frustration – and got lucky with a river straight.

It would take a couple more hours of patience to weather the poker brutality of a cold deck before I started hitting playable hands and catching cards on the flop to triple my buy-in for the session.

Here was a key hand of the night: I have 2-2 in the big blind. The player two off the big blind raises to $17 and gets three callers before it gets back to me. I call.

The flop comes Q-7-2 off. I check.

The raiser bets out $25. I put him on a hand like A-Q or K-Q. I really don’t think he flopped a set. Even though I got stung with a 1000-to-1 longshot earlier, the odds of two players flopping a set is about 99-to-1 against.

I check raise, making it $75.

He plays back at me and shoves.

I insta-call and double up.

Somehow, I avoided a speech. The next couple hours were good. But, fuck, slow starts are brutal.

One of my rounder friends, “B”, is going through the same tundra as me right now.

I got unlucky on my first hand yesterday. Flopped a set against someone who could not fold Aces. She rivered the case ace for a better set.

Had pocket tens beaten by someone who flopped top two with A-Q.

Then, I started to play bad. Flopped bottom set and folded to a big bet that represented a bigger set. My read was wrong, and it was a bad fold.

On my last hand, I had trip 4s. Folded to a big bet that represented a straight. Turns out it was top pair only. Bad read and worse laydown.

They say that when you are going through hell to keep on going. I hope I am in the final stretch of the cold deck.

Here is pretty much what happened during a four hour session:

1. Q-Q: no callers pre-flop
2. 9-9: flopped a set but beat by a flush
3. K-K: no callers pre-flop
4. K-Q: no flop – had to fold
5. J-10: no flop – had to fold
6. A-Q hearts: took down small pot on flop with straight and flush draws
7. K-Q: no flop – had to fold
8. 4-4: all paint on flop – had to fold
9. 6-6: beaten by set of 5s on flop – had to fold
10. A-J: beat by A-A

Between blinds and missed flops, my entire stack evaporated in this session.

Hopefully tonight will be a better night!