What's the best play? + the worst "play" i've ever made

Sunday we had a cash game with the regulars. Plantz played for the first time in a while. I had a GREAT seat with both him and Craig directly on my right.

I'd say I played very average for the day. Some hands I played well and others I just totally screwed up. It seems lately I've opted for less aggression for a more passive preflop stance. And this session I think it really cost me money.

Biggest example was Plantz raising two limpers from the CO with QJo and I flat the button with AKd to encourage more callers and build the pot. Maybe it's being results oriented, but if I had asked myself the title question the answer would have certainly been to 3 bet Plantz and get heads up with him. The flop came A Q J with two clubs. Plantz cbets, I call, and Jason check/calls from the blinds Turn's a blank and plantz fires again. I don't think there's anything wrong with my flop call. Obviously it was very likely someone made two pair on that flop with so many players seeing it for cheap. But folding tptk with a gutshot would be way way too weak. So the turn's a blank and he fires again and I was pretty sure I was beat but I wasn't sure it was Plantz who had me because Jason was still in. So I call and Jason folds. We both check the blank river and he turns over the two pair. Arg.

So that put me down $10 pretty early. I added on right away to get back to $20 and it didn't take me long to get it back.

One more "What's the best play?" hand. This is something I really need to start asking myself a lot more at the table before deciding. So we're playing props and I suggested the 72o bluff prop that we've done in the past. No one objects. I'm fairly certain it's later in the game and I've taken a bad beat with top set of queens where Nick called to the river chasing and hit his straight. So I'm down to roughly $18-20.

I pick up QQ in ep and raise to 80 cents. Pat on my left reraises me small. God I hate how I played this even as I write it. Everyone folds back to me and I can hear myself saying that if I just call here I lose control of the hand and being out of position I'm leaving myself open to getting the pot stolen from me on the flop. Well sure enough I call and the flop comes A x x with two clubs. Now, another though I had as to call preflop and donk lead the flop. Also a viable play and better than what I actually did which was check. Pat bets $5 and I've got about $10 behind that so it's really a decision for all my chips and I've gained no information on his hand because I've fucked up both decisions so far. Like I said I'm pretty certain this is shove/fold here. I certainly can't call and check/fold a turn. However, one last play I thought of was call the flop and then shove a club turn (no club in my hand). But I didn't do that either and folded, face down thank god, and Pat rolled over the 72. Well played my friend.

Pat also got the best of me in the worst hand I've probably ever played. EVER. I pick up KQ and I want to raise to 70 cents. Except I accidentally throw out $2.50 and say "shit" as soon as I do it. Everyone knows me too and even if I didn't say this, they'd know something wasn't right about this raise. So Pat comes in for a raise to $6 pretty quickly and everyone folds. I just think in my head this could just be a pure play based on my live "misclick". But instead of folding and sucking up a $2.50 loss on a mistake, something snaps in my head to where I think "What if I could act like it was an accident and feign like I have a much stronger hand but I mean to raise that much?" So I decided to call preflop and donk the flop for $5. Oops Pat instaraises me $15 more and I fold the KQo face up and talk about how stupid I am. Pat shows me KK and happily takes my donation.

So I'm reminding myself to continue to ask myself questions at the table: What's the best play? How's the table playing generally? Maybe if I can remember to do this in future cash sessions I can improve my results because they really stink so far this year.

Jason is some kind of late run monster that's netting him nice profits because people are playing looser at the end of the night when they have bigger stacks or are stuck. He got the last of my chips with KK overpair to my JT on a J99 flop. GG.