Nobody showed

Your flop play (which was correct IMHO) is a good example of Skalnsky's gap concept. Your LAGgy friend had to have at least a little something to fire into a crowd of four and the guy next to him, theoretically has to have an even bigger hand to flat call w/ two people still to act. The 2nd caller just adds to the danger since there are no apparent draws. You made a well thought out fold. Now if I can just remember all this while I'm playing. I think this was the bigger lesson to be learned/taught by your play.

* In hindsight it looks like the LRR would have been a good move since most of us think he had nothing and that the winner likely had a set.

Uh, can someone explain why it's good not to bet out the flop with the improved AK?

I just don't understand not testing the waters at all on that board.

Hmmmm...

The set assessment seems completely accurate (I missed that one in my last response), but I still like betting out.

First of all, LAG is very likely to have KQ, but may also have been betting JJ or QQ, something like that, in which case, you just take it down by betting out (and indeed win more with the checkraise).

But there are more KQ hands than JJ and QQ together, so I'd rather have him flat call the flop and turn with KQ or even KJ maybe. Anyhow, on the KQ/KJ scenario you win something like $140 from LAG (12 instances of each). You win $27 if he has QQ/JJ (6 instances of each). And you lose $27 if he turns over AA (certainly more against KK, but that's rare), which I assume he raises (surely he's not raising KQ against your bet).

But that assumes that everyone else has missed, which obviously isn't the case. Worst case scenario is that both LP players are drawing to a set, which certainly isn't necessarily the case. But, if so, one of them hits about once in 4. So, you basically take the place of LAG here against the set. If LAG flat calls you, then one of the LP players, I think you're in major trouble and can then quit (or so I'd like to think here. I'd at least like to give up my AK to 2 flop callers on a serious bet). So, you lose an extra $27 once in 4 times on the worst-case scenario of having both LP callers drawing to the set (or having 2 pair with 86s, which from the perspective of AK amounts to pretty much the same thing).

That's my pitch for betting out, anyway. I don't see how the checkraise accomplishes more, but would love to hear a more detailed argument for it...

I think youre right and I shouldve led out, but in this case I do think the guy had a set.
Losing streaks have a way of making you play way too passively.

Well, sounds like the bad phase is over (knock on wood!).

Just a suggestion from some of my recent experiences (fortunately, I haven't gotten into any just overall horrible streaks lately, although I have had some seriously bad days--and horrible day followed by bad): Does focussing on "correct ABC" help at all?

Basically, I'm talking about not making many "plays," keeping the betting purely correct all the way. That does seem to get me by for a while, anyway. I will admit that it gets very irritating (and tough to stay balanced) when things keep going awry for weeks at a time.

And, honestly, as weird as it sounds, going out with friends and drinking much larger quantities of margaritas that were much more potent than I thought last week actually did help me a lot. Just took my mind off poker after a few crappy days (where I unfortunately threw in my fair share of stupid plays) ...

Actually in my case, i think it mightve been the opposite. I think I was getting TOO ABC. Either that or people could see my cards because they were calling my rare bluffs and folding to my big hands.

I was getting 5 callers when I raised 65s and taking the blinds with AA. It IS over now though. ive put together a nice week long winning streak.