Losing Musings

Tilt-man showed up again last night. Not really a tilt in the sense that I began to play really poorly, but tilt in the sense that I played beyond the limits of what my bankroll could withstand.

It started innocently enough with a couple of single table tournaments. I got busted out of the first one in 7th place, I think, when my AK vs. A3 lost to a 3 on the river after an A hit the flop. That was an "ugh" moment. In the second tournament, I got busted in 5th place when my AK yet again got broken on an A-high flop against an A5 when a 5 came on BOTH the turn and the river.

So I joined the $100 NL ring games, where the hand posted below got the better of me. Here's a bit more detail on that hand. I was holding 33 and called a $2 raise to see a flop of 2,3,4. The original raiser immediately goes all-in. To me, it's obvious I'm ahead right here and this is a telegraphed attempt to buy the small $12 pot right there. So I call with ease and confidence. The turn is no help and I thought the river would be no help too, but alas it was a 10 giving him the set.

So with my bankroll depleted already, I tossed the remainder of it away on the 5/10 and 10/20 limit hold 'em tables. Duh. You know, I just have to realize that I'm not the type of gambler/poker player that can successfully pull off a hit and run on the higher limit tables. Other bloggers seem to be able to, just not me. So I'll have to reload and regain some discipline.

What's funny to me is that if I could eliminate 3 days of poker playing from the last year, I'd be up money online. There have been 3 days of -$900 swings and obviously eliminating those type of days would go a long way towards me being profitable online.

I mainly keep track of my financial performance to hopefully one day claim that I'm a decent player. It's an ego thing that I think most players can identify with. The money is a great tool with which to keep score, but the bottom line is that some players want to be a winning player for the intellectual gratification. You see so many professionals at the WSOP say that they want the title and the bracelet, not the money.

So with that, I'm listing some personal rules that I need to follow for the foreseeable future while playing online:

1. When playing no-limit, stay at the $25 buy-in tables.
2. When playing limit, stay at the $1/$2 tables.
3. Stop-loss at no-limit is $25 or 1 buy-in.
4. Stop-loss at limit is also $25.
5. Limit sessions to 2 hours at max (multiple sessions per day are OK)
6. When the bankroll grows to over $500, cash out $100.
7. Read rules 1 through 6 each time you sit down at a table :)

Bottom line is that I know I'm a better player than I was a year ago, but still have some work to do with respect to some aspects of the game. The blogger community has been a huge, valuable resource that I've been able to use to better my play and a big thanks go out to all of you who stop by here and to whose blogs I regularly visit.

Thanks for reading.