Holy Tilt

Well, today I learned what it really means to go tilt. Tilt in poker is when you get so upset you get totally out of control, emotionally or otherwise, and are unable to think clearly. I guess I have to look at it as a lesson learned. Basically, it started when I went in to play casually and accidentally went into a limit game - which is exasperating. I didn't realise I was in a limit game until it was too late and I had been caught in a betting cycle. When you enter a room you automatically need to post a big blind bet to begin, but then the next 2 hands were the other blinds. I lost the first hand on a horrible bad beat and then was into a second big blind before I could say What The Fuck. Walking into a room and losing a couple bucks right away was no big deal under most circumstances because I know I usually can get it back to at least even if I am patient. However, I wanted to get out of the limit game and get into the kind I prefer to play. Considering the loss I took was on a bad beat, I figured I could stay around for a bit and win back to my initial deposit without taking any big risks. Next thing I knew this quiet little corner with only 4 people playing was a full table with 10 people. Then, I could not get a playable hand. Alarm bells were going off in my head to just get out of the room, but I had considered playing limit to learn so I decided to play. Big mistake - the cards were killing me, and with no way to make the one or two good hands I had really pay off or push anyone out with a big bet to avoid bad beats, I was in over my head with people who obviously play Limit Hold'em all the time. They weren't actually GOOD at it, they just kept betting on every piece of crap they had and no one would fold out. I was just playing and trying to keep my cool, won a hand, and thought I was more settled. However, I played only 3 of the next dozen or more deals and got beaten on the river all 3 times... I decided Limit games, or at least at this table with all calling stations, was NOT for me so I put my tail between my legs and took off. Now, I wasn't out of control then - I was upset at being unable to read anyone at that table, and I was annoyed that I had played the odds every time and lost - but I figured oh well, no big deal. Intellectually it bothered me to have "the cards against me" or "bad luck" because it just isn't mathematically reasonable. That creates an internal conflict - play longer so the stats even out or get out and change the scene - and I got caught in the middle of that. So, I poked around looking for a ring game of No-Limit to just casually play for a little while. I wandered into a room to get started and found myself in a nightmare. I coudln't get a decent hand. One player obviously was one who considered what he was playing to be virtually play money because he would throw out bets of insane amounts on hands like seven-deuce unsuited, trying to bluff almost EVERY pot. That's fine, as long as the odds play out and you actually get some hands that are decent to play. When I got cards, I couldn't get a decent flop, but mostly I never got cards, which meant to prevent huge losses against the calling station from hell I had to get out. ON top of that, anothe rguy in the room was one of those people who buys in, wins a small amount, leaves the room and buys in for his tiny little amount again, never actually putting anything on the table to play against. He just kept throwing in his little pile in All-In, and when it worked he squirreled what he got out of the room. Basically no one else at the table mattered because these two were just impossible to devise a strategy against when you have no decent deals. So, my brain is screaming at me that this is almost impossible and sooner or later things have to even out, my little tiny superstitious portion is telling me I am just having bad luck and I should quit, and the competitive part of me is telling me to stay around and learn how to play these guys. Complete inner conflict. Then, I got slammed on two bad beats when I had very good cards.After losing 80% of my initial stake - but watching a whole lot of money leave the room with Mr. Squirrel - I got fed up with waiting for decent cards and decided to find someplace else where people were actually there to play poker and not be assholes. I found another table and was pleased to find a nice game with a couple of players there to play poker. I enjoyed myself and was calming down, but after 5 minutes the two good players LEFT - must have been lunch hour, because no one was getting slammed except a couple of foolish noobs who threw in all-ins with nothing and lost their little stakes. I figured, hey, ok, I am sure someone else will come along... big mistake. All of a sudden the room was full which was too many players for me to learn at once. I tried sitting back but once again one of the players was someone who threw huge bets in before the flop to bluff all opening bets/blinds every hand, and another was a calling station with money to burn. I couldn't get a card better than one pair of jacks, and a lot of horrible unsuited rags, so I was just contributing blinds and opening bets. When I started folding almost everything, cards were blurring around the room and people were coming and going so fast it wasn't funny. After falling down to almost nothing trying to ride out the storm I decided enough was enough and got the hell out again. Found one more room, upset that I was doing nothing but paying blinds in for nothing. At this point I probably should have taken a breather because my mind was racing, but having lost what I had lost I wanted to just have a chance to at least start working back to even for the day. No such luck... another room of really bad players, and I started getting down on funds AGAIN - when I got an absolutely Primo AA hand. I was on the buttin with only half my stack left, so I figured, all these guys have thrown in, this is worth an All-In... and went ahead. 3 folded, and two people STAYED IN going all-in as well! I thought, well, that's good I guess unless something goes very wrong. The cards turned over and I saw one had gone in with an unsuited 4-6, and the other had gone in with unsuited 7-J. I thought, score! These guys thought I was bluffing, and I will probably win. The flop was 8-2-4, the turn 10, and the river 9. My AA had been kicked in the balls by a hand that should NEVER have been played, and that was it for me in that room... rather than recash I logged out and buggered off, in an absolute uproar. I didn't know whether to scream or cry, I couldn't figure out what I did wrong, and wehn I reviewed it over and over, looking at hand histories, I could not have played it any different. I had just been beaten by purely extremely unlikely sequences of events - and that just made it worse because my intellect was imploding with trying to calculate the odds against it. Virtually on the edge of a nervous breakdown I went downstairs to try and talk to the wife about it to reason it out in my head, and was greeted with being shouted at because I was upset. It was like throwing gasoline on a fire and I just exploded, and stomped back upstairs. After a few minutes she followed me up, and I tried to explain to her this insane thing, but it just was not explicable. I was a bit calmer although very upset and I decided the best way to cool down is to find some rational people to play against. I went into a room and the whole cycle started again. I could get no better than the very bottom hands, I could not even get 2 cards of the same suit, and on the rare occasion I got a playable hand I was up against someone betting far more than the value of the pot and was forced out for the sake of not losing everything. I then lost on ANOTHER bad beat on the river and was starting to get upset again. I knew I needed to get out. I didn't want to go out losing again, though, so I decided a couple more hands to at least see what happened. I got KK and was in alone against the guy who had got the bad beat on the river. I decided slow play was best and when another K came on the flop I was pretty sure I was going to win. I bet modest bets, and got back more than he had taken the first time, and when the cards were revealed I had won and gained 25% over my initial buy-in. That was it, and I left. I decided I was not playing for money any more today, other than entering a freeroll tourney. We'll see how that turns out (edit: 261 out of 2500). Valuable lessons learned, though. I tried to lay down and have a nap and my guts were just churning with stress. Then I remembered seeing a Phil Hellmuth video where he said he had a friend who was playing online and lost $35000 in an hour, and got so furious he threw his laptop out his window and into his swimming pool. Apparently he had made over $250K dollars on the same site up to that point. In the big scheme of things, it was a minor bump for me - I had already won 5 times what I lost today in the last 48 hours so it wasn't like I was actually DOWN, and obviously it just happens sometimes to everyone. The best players in the world will lose 100 days out of every 300 they play. I just didn't expect it to kick me in the head so soon.

Long Night

After spending the whole day out Friday, I didn't get to do much of anything with poker. I played a little for play money very late that night and then found out I could set up a real money account in only a few minutes even without a credit card, so I went ahead and did it. I felt like there was little I could learn continuing to play for play money - I was seeing the same hare-brained stuff again and again and taking advantage of it gets old. I figure, if I am going to play in these situations, I might as well play for something. So, I made a deposit. Then I played a couple of play money tournaments and won one and came in second in the other. I figured I was ready to try something for real, but it was in the wee hours of the morning and I was tired in spite of a nap earlier. I ended up 4th in the tournament after pulling a bonehead move... all in all I was having pretty bad luck the whole time anyway, but finishing as bubble boy shook me up. I was so ANGRY at myself for not backing off when I knew I had to. Every instinct was screaming fold and I just killed myself. So, I was pretty unsure of any success. The next 15 hours I was asleep, I was worn out from the trip out Friday and the stress of the game and a lot of other things. I decided I would play a couple of play money games again before a late supper (around 10pm), and see if I felt confident enough to get back into it. First, I played some small-stakes ring tables. Those little 5 and dime and .10 to .25 games can be fun without making your guts curl up too much worrying about losing it all. I won back what I had spent on the tourney the night before, but then lost it back to my buy-in +50 cents again. I wasn't on a loss for the day, but I got very antsy when I dropped down after that to only 1/3 of my buy-in. In a classic example of the need for patience, though, I slowly worked my way back up to my buy in and a bit beyond, and then finally got some good cards and tripled it. I had won back my lost tourney fee, plus double it again, giving me 2 "freebies" to try again. I played 2 more tournaments and finished second in one and third in the other, all positions which are better than break-even. I felt a lot better but not like playing another tourney so I went and played some more ring games, figuring I could get out any time and go to sleep since it was getting late again. It went well at first and then I pulled another boner and lost 80% of my buy-in plus all my winnings on ONE HAND in a five and dime ring game. This got me thinking I should go play the limit games, which is probably true. Then I considered the table I was at - in spite of it being a beginners table, several strong players were there. Also, I like playing a little short handed but that table kept filling up (probably due to the high "per hand" average showing on the tables list due to some hefty pots including the one I surrendered). I decided it was stupid to sit there playing at a disadvantage and for the second smallest bets when I really wanted to play for more. If you overbet on the smallest tables people fold and it is no way to gain anything. So, I went back to the slightly higher .25 and .50 Blind tables, and in 15 minutes won back all of what I had lost. Then I doubled it again and decided I would go to sleep. I tried to relax but couldn't - something told me to play one tourney to try and get my confidence stable since I was still feeling unsure. It was a tough one, many good players but no great ones. They all had a weakness that they showed at some point or another, mostly being too reckless - overplaying hands and bluffing too often. I took it easy and played strong when I had cards (which wasn't often), but it got me a modest chip lead so I could cruise. By the time there were 4 left at the table I knew I was pretty secure to get at least 3rd place unless I did something stupid. By the time we were down to 2 people, the 20000 total chips on the table were split about 70-30 in favour of the other guy. I was fortunate, though, because I had been watching them play so I had a good idea what I was up against. I had a bad run where I got down to only about 3000 chips and was getting a bit worried when I managed to double up with a strong hand. After winning a couple more hands, he threw an all-in at me when I had AA and I was able to basically switch positions. It took quite a few hands but eventually I was up with about 15000 chips, and we kept swapping around 1000 chips back and forth. I was biding my time, because I knew that sooner or later he would go all-in when I had a hand because he had tried it half a dozen times already. I finally had a pair of 10s and when he pushed all his chips in, I figured it was go time because I had him covered for chips. If I HAD lost I would have been back where I had been when I was down to 3000 chips, so I didn't see it as giving up the game. When his cards turned over and I saw he had Q4 offsuit, I knew all I had to do was dodge a Queen and unlike the runs of bad luck earlier, I was fortunate - the board cards helped neither hand and I had won first place for the first time in a money tournament. After this all-nighter the funds are modest, but I increased my total by 50% over my initial deposit to my poker account. It wasn't an exceptionally lucky day, nor was I very sharp with how tired I was, but the outcome was very good. I got really walloped on a few bad beats - more than my fair share, I felt, and I am keenly aware that it could have been much worse, but also buoyed by the thought that if it only went this well for a week it would pay for our groceries. For us, that's a seriously big difference. Hope it works out.