Closing my Zoom NL50 tables after a 30-minute session, I checked my balance in the Poker Stars Lobby to see it to have barely moved off the $1,000 I deposited 3 months previously. That capped off 8 months of a flat win rate in online poker, something that had not happened to me in almost 2 decades of playing. Lack of a winning streak? All of my good streaks and all of my bad streaks of every length and depth
Five days left in WSOP’s DIY bonus. I feel like I never want to see another card again. So far, I’m about $500 up, not a good two weeks normally, but the $2000 bonus will make it worth it. Even if I break even, I’ll consider the bonus a successful half month. But this will be my last grind of its kind. Today, I was playing with ease. I was making hands and getting calls, things were fine. When I
I was chatting with another player about his “particularly bad run” over the last two days. I suggested that he take a break and do something else and he answered that he “plays through” his bad runs and that it “doesn’t affect his play.” I’ve heard the same thing for two decades of playing poker and it’s as much bullshit today as it was in 2000. Do I fall into the same trap as him? Absolutely. But as my career
Human beings are driven by primitive instincts, most of which evolved in a very different world of limited resources and dangerous predators. When we lose something, we have an urge to “get it back.” I’ve felt it as a professional gambler, in fact, I regularly feel it. It is a painful emotion. Ironically, this instinct probably served our ancestors well in ancient times, when it was necessary to fight for every scrap of food. That impulse to “get it back”
Stress or Tilt? We like to use the terms interchangeably. Recently I read The Mental Game of Poker, and he coined the word Accumulated Tilt, when referring to a streak of tilt that builds up in a player and affects his decisions. Recently, for me, I’ve decided to never use the word tilt when referring to ongoing emotional or mental problems. Tilt is what happens immediately after a loss or some other negative poker instance. Stress is what happens as
Accumulated Tilt! That’s exactly what I’m feeling. Of course, it’s just another term for stress, which I was already very aware of, but it was comforting to read that definition when I sat down with The Mental Game of Poker. My technical game in poker is strong. It’s been strong for a long time. There really aren’t any concepts in No-limit Holdem that I’m lagging far behind other players, even the best players. Sometimes though, I just can’t get out
For me, my biggest leak is playing while tilted. I could say it is simply being tilted, but that is not actually the case. I can be tilted and not playing and I won’t lose any more than I just lost. I’m going to get tilted when I play — most of us do. I guess there may be some Zen masters out there who could lose set under set, get someone all in on the turn drawing to 4
