Playing the wrong game

I play in two different weekly tournaments.  One is a standard holdem game an the other is.. well, the other is just plain weird.

It's dealers choice, though it has to be some variant on holdem.  What they usually play is what they call "four and keep 'em", in which you get four cards and play all of them.  Of course this causes hand inflation: two pair or a straight will almost never win.  Flushes and full house are expected and four of a kind and straight flushes come up often.  As your opponents are holding four cards, what's on the board is almost meaningless.

Not entirely meaningless, of course, but you do have to strongly adjust your thinking when raising or even calling.  Even aces full of kings might be beaten by somebody holding an invisible four of a kind.  That's not likely, of course, but it can happen.

Tuesday was this game.  I don't know what was wrong with me the first two hours, but I was playing normal holdem, not four card holdem.  I think I was distracted by email from a customer that I was dealing with between hands, but it really was stupid: I was holding four cards in my hand and betting on the board as though it were only two!

Of course I bled money.  After my fourth rebuy (I seldom make any rebuy, never mind four!) I woke up and changed my strategy.  That let me get to the final table and ultimately i took third place.  That doesn't pay much, so I still lost money, but not as much as I would have otherwise.