This post and others can be read at my blog at
www.livenolimit.blogspot.com


I often say that I dont tilt that much but I just had an episode that I had to get off my chest.

I was playing in a game today where everything was going against me. My cards were filled with spaces instead of paint and I found myself getting impatient for the cards to come. Things have been running so bad for the past month and I think todays' tilting episode is the culmination of stress from the last 30 sessions or so.

The game I was in was wild. 3-4 handed on every raised flop and the best hand was getting outdrawn time and again. I finally managed to make a hand when I flopped a set with 44 but was drawing dead on the turn when my opponent made quad 5's with his pocket 5's. Set over set, basically the worse thing that can happen to you. It's happened to me before and I can usually let it go but this one hurt. When I flopped the set I felt that this hand would be a turning point for me but once I saw what I was up against I could feel my head starting to pound and my body heat up. I didnt yell and scream or anything like that but I could feel my insides turning to shit. What the fuck is going on this month? It seems like I'm running card dead wherever I turn. I think I did too well in my first 3 months of ring game play and my expectations are too high.

Anyway, my tilting episode goes like this. $200 1/2 blind on PokerStars I have AK spades in the BB. MP player makes it $10 to go, next player calls, I smooth-call. The EP limper makes it $34 to go. Everybody folds to me. For some reason I decide to push all-in with the AK suited. My oppponent insta-calls, I get no help on the flop, and he shows me the 2 red aces. $200 out the window just like that. Why did I make this stupid play? Most of the time I would fold AK suited out of position when I am clearly up against a big pair. At the very least, 99.99999999% of the time I would just smooth call the re-raise and play the flop. I knew this fucking hand was coming because after I lost with the set of 4's I told myself to call it a day but I wanted to push myself to play even in the face of adversity. I dont think it was a mistake to continue playing, but I should of taken a walk after the set-over-set. Looking back, at the moment I pushed in with the AK I think I said to myself, "Aww..fuck it, I dont feel like playing today anyhow, lets either double up or get the hell outta here". Seriously novice thinking.

I see people make these types of plays all of the time. I have 20,000 hands recorded in my Poker Tracker and can tell you that during these hands I have not made a mistake of this magnitude ever. Every time I lost a full buy in it was because I either got outdrawn or had KK run into AA. Losing like this just feels absolutely horrible. How do people play like this every day and live with themselves?

I'm sure you all know the feeling..I basically feel like quitting the game, but that is unrealistic. I'm through my compulsive-gambler-stage and refuse to let the highs and the lows of the game affect how I play or how I look at the game. This was just one incident and hopefuly I will learn from it.

play good

YD