Looking Within

11 AUG 05

A successful poker player must be introspective (or so say the pundits), so in the interest of seeking the truth, I am forced to admit that I went on TILT yesterday.

Online poker is an interesting world. Sitting in my kitchen with the wireless hook-up to the laptop, I am amazed at how often I get my heart pumping with simple clicks of the mouse. I play tight aggressive, and lately my table image has not gotten me a lot of action. That’s okay. If I just steal the blinds or win a few hands on the flop, I’m fine with that. I know when to fold (in fact, I folded pocket AA on the turn and a Q-high flush on the turn yesterday. Both hands went to the river and both folds saved me a BUNCH of money). I’m usually not fazed with the occasional suckout on the river. Variance. But yesterday there were 4 consecutive hands that, while technically not the worst of bad beats, their cumulative effect took its toll.

Can you say, “re-buy?” I knew you could.

Then I proceeded to lose most of the re-buy in about a half hour. It was only time limitations that forced me to stop. Thank goodness for that. I’m now convinced that I wasn’t playing my best and would have lost the rest of that buy-in had I stayed. If only I would have figured that out sooner. I need to be better about setting personal limits (besides those forced on me by time constraints).

Anyway, in order to get right with the world, I went back for some live action at the Muckleshoot. The same regulars were there at the $10/$20 table and we chatted briefly about the good time we had the previous night. It was truly a fun table. Unfortunately, there was only one table of $10/$20, but plenty of open seats at $4/$8. I really hate low limit (as I’ve said before), but what the heck. Here was my night:

Start with $60 (unusual move, since I usually start with a full rack ($100) and I intended to buy in to the higher limit with a lot more than that. My thought was that it would force me to play more conservatively).

Quickly got up to $120 with some good cards and a couple of LOL (little old lady) calling stations.

Back to $60 with too-aggressive play. I guess I got greedy.

Nearly busted to nothing an hour later.

Got to all in with top pair and the nut-flush draw post-flop and caught the nuts on the turn. Back to $60.

Crazy rush at the end included a full-house, Ace-high flush and flopped set to finish at $160.

Now if I can just get that online stuff figured out.

You should be reading: Up For Poker

Final thought: One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing. - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891