The worst feeling in poker

I've gone out of tourneys running big hands into even bigger hands. When that happens, I can just say "Oh well. He had it. What can I do?" I've gone out of tourneys with a bad beat, where the poor play gets rewarded. When that happens I can just say "Oh well. I want him to do that. What can I do?"

At least in those situations, when you say "What can I do", you mean "other than stick my chips in there with a big hand" to which the answer is, almost invariably, nothing. I've gotten very far in tournaments lately and then just gone stone cold carded, which is, to me, an infinitely worse feeling.

In the 30k this weekend (the one where I was a fish and was completely owned), from two tables on, I could not pick up a hand. Apparently, I had a big ole sign on my avatar that said "I am completely card dead. On the rare occasions I pick up a mediocre hand, I completely miss the flop. Do not, under any circumstances, fold!" Very frustrating.

The same thing happened tonight in the 45k (10r) on stars. I made a very good fold (FTOP sez it was "wrong", but it was the right play) with queens. When that happens, I'm supposed to begin picking up a lot of very good hands as a karmic reward. Um... That didn't happen. I played about 50 hands after that, the best of which was A7s, and that was behind a raise. I tried to make things happen, but I was moved to a table that struggled to fold postflop. I ended up pushing with A6o and 6 big blinds, and ran into tens.

Of course, as I pushed I said "I hate doing this, I hate doing this, I hate doing this. Please, just fold." Oh well. I finished four off the bubble. I didn't really care about the bubble though, the 51 bucks (20 profit, I was in for the "minimum") did not do a whole lot for me. I wanted to get a stack so I could accomplish something in the tournament besides the first pay structure.

Instead, I just was left sitting there, folding hand after hand, agitated as all hell. Literally, there's nothing I could do. Even when I sensed the time was right to steal a limper or two - someone beat me to it. Just... GAH! It's poker impotency, that's what it is.