I’ve been taking a beating lately. My bankroll is draining fast and I’m worried about going broke for the 2nd time since playing seriously. My sense is that what’s going wrong is mostly due to variance. A common pattern I’ve been facing is making one big hand early in a session and raking a big pot, then going card dead. As the session grinds on looking down at 7-3, 10-2 and the like, those rare situations I do connect with the flop I end up over playing. For example: having 9-7 off suit in the big blind, it checks to me and the flop comes 9-10-2 and the small blind checks. I bet and get called all the way and am beat by a guy with 10-J on the button.
It only takes one or two of these losses (along with bleeding my blinds) and I’m stuck a rack. I rebuy and start worrying about my short term performance. “I’m down a rack, so I could double up on this rebuy and I’m still only breaking even.” “Even if I only break even, after investing three hours my win rate will still take another hit.”
The grind continues with my 2nd buyin and the crazy thinking starts. “I’m playing way too tight. I should just take a chance on the button and cutoff and just see a flop with any two cards.” I also start making very dubious peels, calling one bet on the flop with small suited connectors trying to improve to a proper draw on the turn. Nearly every time when I do end up improving I miss on the river anyway and I’ve just pissed away 2 big bets.
I’ve tried a few things to help my rising frustration. Breathing exercises, positive self-talk, taking a walk and listening to music. I even bought a watch with some of my winnings and I look at it or play with it when I’m in a rut like this. These things help for a time but I continue to feel defeated and glum as the card death continues. I lay my head on the table, start counting out loud the number of hands I don’t play in a row and audibly grouse about my bad run of cards. A few times I’ve even crossed the monkey tilt threshold and stopped caring, finally catching a decent hand, missing the flop and blindly betting and raising despite a coordinated board and walking into a baseball bat.
There is little doubt that these bad runs are to blame for a chunk of my bankroll that’s missing. There is also no doubt that my tilt in the face of this bad run is compounding the problem. I would probably be just as frustrated with my bad run had tilt not been a factor but my bankroll wouldn’t be on life support.
Not only is tilt costing me money but a more serious concern is that it’s making me miserable. I’m getting to the point were I’m having some fear about sitting down at the table and wanting to “take a break” from poker. I’ve even done things like deleted a disaster session and made plans to archive my database and “start a new bankroll” as a clean start.
There are a couple game conditions that I’ve noticed hasten my slide into tilt. One is when the game gets really good. One or two action players sit down and pots start getting really big. I recognize that winning one or two pots from these guys would be enough to get me into positive territory for the session. I want so badly to get in and mix it up with these guys but just can’t catch a hand to try. As the fish inevitably spew all their chips to the table and leave, I’m still grinding my tiny stack, stuck a rank and a half and go back to trying to scratch a tiny pot or two away from the loose-passive regulars.
Another condition I often face is when one player at the table is running very good. I’ve lost one or two big hands to this person and fail to recognize that other players have too. As their mountain of chips grows, I start getting resentful and begin to imagine that this player is targeting me. My rational mind knows this is ridiculous. Nearly all players at my stakes wouldn’t know how to exploit a weaker opponent even if they could identify someone they had an edge on (not a forgone conclusion). Thinking that a player on a heater is somehow singling me out is not only paranoid but granting way too much credit to an opponent. The fact that most players are solely focused on their own hand, (not on anyone else’s potential holding) is the very thing that gives advanced players an edge. Nevertheless, my reptile brain is in fight or flight mode thanks to my tilting reaction to my bad run. I’m not only seeing monsters under the bed but across the table from me too, behind that big stack of chips! I try to play back at these players with marginal hands and end up getting whacked.
Finally, the last situation happens so frequently that it undermines my confidence and sometimes has me changing my game to the point of endangering my winning status. Rationally, I know that a hand like A-Q will win more than its share, probably around 30%. I also know that 30% is not 100%. Despite a big preflop advantage, I’m still going to lose 7 times out of 10. To make up for these losses, I know I need to get as much money as I can into the pot early in the hand when I do still have an edge. However, when I’m running bad and take a loss with A-Q I feel a great sense of injustice in that I’m falling far short of the 30% that’s due to me. One of two scenarios play out here: I either go on monkey tilt and try to bull my way to winning the pot on the next occasion I have a strong starting hand or something much worse.
Early on I played hands like A-Q way too passively and missed out on a lot of folding equity. One or two spots like this in a session when failing to play appropriately aggressive can be the difference between a winning and loosing session. When I’m running badly I begin to lose faith in this very basic poker concept. I become demoralized and begin to think things like, “What’s the use? I’m just going to miss the flop anyway. Why not just limp in, see the flop and fold when faced with a bet. That way I can cut my losses.” That thinking is a total disaster to winning poker. Giving in to thinking, “It’s better to win a small pot than lose a big one” will grind me down just as sure as my stretch of card death and a combination of the two could drive me out of poker all together.
Confidence problems and tilt are clearly impacting my game. I’ve started reading Jared Tendler’s book, The Mental Game of Poker. One of the suggestions he has is to use journaling as a tool to manage tilt. I’ve decided to give it a try. I can’t control a bad run of cards, but I have all the control in the world over how I deal with it. The difference could mean life or death to my poker career.
No comments:
Post a Comment