What a disaster. After having such a stellar week, I experienced a huge meltdown yesterday. In a nutshell, I gave back all of my gains for the week, plus some. After getting up to nearly $700 in my bankroll, I’m now down well under $600. Can you say “ouch?” Can you say “bad beats?” Can you say “tilt?”
Can you say, “I hate this fucking game?”
It all started with a loss in a $6 SnG. I was basically card dead for 50 hands or so, and finally had to push with a weak ace. I did nothing wrong, just got bad cards. No big deal. So I jump into a $1/2 limit 6max game-- and promptly lose $50. Yes, $50 dollars! Again, I didn’t really do anything wrong. It was just a number of serious bad beats and unlucky situations. Things like kings running into aces, a straight getting squashed by a rivered flush, a flopped set losing to a flush. In each case, I flopped the best hand and pushed it hard. In each case, I got outdrawn. And, unfortunately, in each case, I lost a ton of money.
It’s all just part of poker, right? Well, it should have been, but somewhere around the third or fourth major bad beat, I felt my brain snap. Worse, there wasn’t much I could seem do about stopping it. I jumped into a $6 Turbo SnG and had AK busted by AQ about three hands into the game. Then another $6 Turbo and another quick exit. I then jumped into an $11 game, trying to recoup my losses (can you say, “IDIOT!??”). Yes, I went out in eighth place, again when AK got busted by AQ. (Can you say "I HATE ANNA?")
I was down to $605 or so at this point in my bankroll, and, fortunately, had run out of free time to play. I was in a daze, I was confused, I was angry at myself, angry at the poker gods, angry at just about everything and anything I could think of. I swore I would never play another hand of this totally random, heartbreaking, frustrating, stupid, time-wasting game ever again.
But then later that I night, of course, I played some more. And lost some more. Can you say, “a LOT more?”
Again, I played some 6max limit. First Friggin’ Hand, I get 55 one off the button. I’m already in for $1, as I had posted my late blind to get playing right away. There's a raiser UTG and a cold caller in front of me. I’m getting the right odds to call the $1. BB completes, too. Flop comes 6-5-2. It checks to me, I bet my set, all three guys call. Yada yada yada. My set loses to a rivered straight, and I’m down $25 or so, just like that. I quit shortly thereafter, and then swore again I was giving up poker for tiddly-winks or legos or checkers… anything where actually doing the right thing will actually result in positive feedback and not heartbreak. Arhghg.
I’m writing this early Saturday morning. I’m up before everyone else, and despite my promises to take up tic-tac-toe or competitive yoga, I instead end up playing a $6 Turbo. I do everything right and become the slight chip leader. Then it’s bubble time. I pick up TT under the gun. I raise and get the big blind medium stack to push all in on me. This is a marginal situation (folding is probably the right move, actually), but instead I call. He turns over AQ and hits his ace on the river, and just like that I go from certain money to certain death. Arghgh. I’m down to 400 in chips. I can’t believe my awful luck. I blindly push with my next hand regardless of what it is. My 74s flushes out on the flop! I'm up to 900 or so. Next hand I push again and get everyone to fold. I push the next hand, same result. Suddenly I'm back in this thing. Suddenly I’m in the money. Suddenly we’re down to two. Suddenly I pick up AA and get some action. Suddenly I’ve won the damn thing.
Can you say, “WOO FUCKING HOO?!?”
I swear, this damn game is like dieting. You can be good, eat salads, exercise, be diligent, and knock off a half pound a week for months on end, racking up a decent long-term result. Then, in the course of one bad weekend, you can undo all the good you’ve achieved and worked for and go into a tailspin of Dunkin' Donuts and chocolate bars. Or, in the case of poker, tilted SnGs and desperate ring games.
So, this bright Saturday morning, I again ask myself if this game is really a good one for me long term? It’s certainly a gigantic time sink, and it certainly is frustrating as all hell. It also is so infused with luck and randomness that I’m not sure my engineer-trained mind is up to the task of dealing with it over the long haul. Dunno. I’ll probably keep playing for now, but I need to dial it back a bit and find some perspective. I still want to play in the WSOP (which was one of the initial goals that got me serious about this game in the first place), and practicing online is definitely good training for it, but I’m not sure it’s actually worth all the pain and suffering and mental anguish. We’ll see...
And a new daily feature for the blog starts today: I will be posting my percent change of bankroll for each twenty-four hour period (or since the last post). Much like a dieter attending a Weight Watcher's meeting, I will be standing up and stating just how friggin' fat my bankroll is (or isn't, as the case may be) on a daily basis. All part of the "writing down results" mantra of the guru....
24-hour Bankroll Change: -10.17% (ouch).
All-in for now….
-Bug
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