I Tilted
Hey all, It has been a little bit since my last post. I have been working my way back from the worst poker week in my life. In about three or four days of play I lost about 200 big bets ($400), which is almost 30% of my online roll. It started off with a bad run of luck which I then chose to compound with bad play. I think I won four of fourteen hands with Aces and Kings, and people were constantly calling my flop bets with overcards and spiking a six-outer on the turn or river. It seemed like I could not win a pot.
There was honestly nothing I could do. I was bound to lose money. The problem was that I lost control of my emotions and started playing like crap on top of it. I should have changed my screen name to impliedodds because that was what everyone was getting from me. I was doing very dumb stuff like calling down with second pair after getting check-raised on a four-liner straight board. I was past Caro’s threshold of misery or whatever he calls it, and I was calling just to see what beat me. I should have just quit, but instead I opened more tables trying to make up my losses which only compounded my troubles. I did everything that you are not supposed to do and I knew that I was doing it. Pure tilt, and I think I lost twice as much as I should have after it was all said and done.
Now I am not sure what to do. My confidence in my limit game is pretty low. It is not just the losses either, I can see the weak-tight rearing it’s ugly head again. I am not playing to win, I am playing to not lose. I am trying to work on it though. I have dropped down from $1-$2 to $.50-$1 for right now, and I have started playing some more NL and PLO. I think I am going to play some turbo SnG’s to get back my aggressiveness that I have lost.
I have managed to win about $100 back so far this week, but it has been a slow grind compared to how fast it went. I hope I can learn from all this and that is the reason for me writing all this. to help me figure out how it all happened and to hopefully keep myself from doing it again. I also hope this can help you when you start to feel the steam rising from the bad beats and cold decks. Remember the old saying- Don’t go throwing good money after bad.
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I have had a number of bad runs, where I get hit with some amazing bad beats and then tilt kicks in and things go from bad to worse. In February I had such a run. In 4 days I lost $1676 playing 1/2… thats right more than 800 big bets in 4 days. Here is a cut and paste from my session log:
date session win Start bal Balance
8-Feb-08 $282.40 $3,839.60 $4,122
9-Feb-08 $(614.00) $4,050.00 $3,436
10-Feb-08 $(276.00) $3,436.00 $3,160
11-Feb-08 $(455.00) $3,160.00 $2,705
12-Feb-08 $(331.00) $2,705.00 $2,374
13-Feb-08 $216.00 $2,324.00 $2,540
During this run…. it would always start with some bad beats and then tilt would kick in! And tilt can be magnified by 6 when you are playing 6 tables! I finally snapped it by taking a cash gmae break and playing some MTT’s and SnG’s. But I only wish I could be smart enough to quit when I am on tilt… but I don’t realize I am on tilt at the time!
So if you are in a bad spot… switch games for a few days and go down to 1 table. Consider taking some days off and spend your playing time doing some poker reading. Try not to play right through it!