I dream of... Gus?

I guess playing 6/12 is worrying me more than I thought, because I had some poker dreams last night.

Somewhere when I was tossing and turning between 7 (when I usually get up) and 7:45 (when I actually got out of bed) I dreamed the following:

Apparently, I was playing high-stakes PLO8 with a bunch of pros. While I wasn't nervous or worried about losing money, they could read me like a book.

Then, in early position, I was dealt AQxx with some suits and played it. The flop came out AQQ and I checked, doing my best to act uninterested or whatever I do when I check and fold a hand. But it checked around. So on the turn (a ten), I led out trying to make it look like a bluff, but I totally expected it to fold around (because I never get action on my monsters).

Surprisingly, Gus Hansen called, which I interpreted as him trying to snap off a bluff or trying to hit a crazy card. The river came another ten and somehow I still knew I had the best hand. I just had a laser-like read; there was no doubt I had Gus. So I grabbed some chips to value-bet, and Gus started his folding motion. Thinking fast, I dropped just one $5K chip in the pot and Gus pulled his fold back because I bet so little. Then he started making those faces as he did some math, trying to get away from his hand based on his read (since I'm so super-tight), while I did my best to pretend that I was bluffing. Finally, he called, and I was really proud of myself for getting that extra little bit of profit.

Then I flipped over my hand. Q99x. What? Where'd my ace go?

Anyway, Gus dragged the pot (although I never saw what he had). And I came out of my dream wondering what the hell it meant...

If I had to psychoanalyze, I'd say I'm confident in my play, but concerned I'll make an idiotic play to lose money. Of course, it's limit, so no mistake will hurt me that much.

One thing that always boggles my mind (and one of the reasons I gave up limit long ago -- check out previous posts where I mention limit...) is that your expectation in a limit game is approximately one large bet each hour. So if I make a bad call once every hour; poof -- profit gone.

The thing is, which I'm just starting to wrap my head around, is there are very few situations where a bet put into the pot will truly lose you a full bet based on the range of hands your opponent could be holding and cards to come. For instance, I'll often beat myself up for calling on the river in bad shape -- but my opponent will be bluffing some percent of the time, so I'm not really losing a full bet! And in a 10BB pot, he only needs to be bluffing 10% of the time for it to make me money.

Enough of that now though, more on my leaks in a later post.