My Own Tilt Hell

Why do I tilt? I know better, but I still steam easily at the table. Its not even the normal tilt after a bad beat. Don't get me wrong, I do tilt somewhat after a bad beat. But you know what really makes me tilt? A bully. I really go on tilt if someone plays back at me a couple of times. I am sure there is some deep psychological reason for this that I probably don't want the answer too, but damn I need to find a way control this.

I like to think I am a decent to good poker player. I would like to think that, but the truth is if I can be put off my game (Well wait a minute, that is too gentle a way to put it. Its more like sent wildly careening off my game.) by being reraised by the same person a couple of times in a row, then I am a complete fish.

I completely lose focus when I think someone is bullying me. I stop paying attention to everyone else, and make it my mission to destroy the bully. Here's the funny part, sometimes it works. Great, I should be happy. Well the problem is that I put so much time and energy into beating this one person, that I have no idea how the others at the table are playing and will inevitably loose my stack to them. Wait what, seat one likes to check raise? I had no idea! Um, seat 4 only raises with monsters? Damn, wish I would have picked up on that!

What prompted this post was CJ over at Up For Poker. He listed his general game plan for a session. One of the steps was to pick one person at the table and reraise every raise they make. Let me tell you, it works. It completely derails me.

I wish I could post that I am going to overcome this by taking some imaginary steps that I would now list.

1) See here would be one counter-measure I would list

2) Here would be the 2nd counter-measure

3) For those of you who are slow, this would be counter-measure number 3

Unfortunately, I am kind of tilting right now just thinking about it. So maybe I should do the exact opposite, maybe I should embrace the steaming. You know, really get to know it. Maybe take it out for a drink or two, get it drunk, and then consummate this ugly relationship I have with it. Instead of trying to kick it out of the house, instead, I should greet it at the door with open arms. I would learn to live with it, make it work for me instead of against me. Yeah, now that is a money making plan!

What the hell that last paragraph means? I have no fricken idea, but it kind of creeps me out. What I do know is that I have a long way to go before I can consider myself a good poker player.

Review: Eric Lindgrens Making The Final Table

So I finished reading Making The Final Table by Eric Lindgren with special guest star Matt Matros. I give it a C.

Eric comes across as a likable guy, who is sharing some of his thoughts on tournament poker. Notice I say some of his thoughts. It seems very apperant that he withheld alot of information. I think this book could have been so much more if Eric really went in depth into his strategy. Unfortunatly he didnt. I did get a couple of pieces that were usefull, but not much.


The book comes across as a promotional tool for the WPT. The WPT is mentioned so much in this book that it becomes distracting. I understand that they basically published this book, but they didnt have to keep bashing us over the head with WPT references. Speaking of bashing over the head, thats what Eric does with his 2 main themes. Be aggresive. Play to win, not to make the money. Good concepts, but Eric could have given us much more info oh how to do this.

E-dogs material is very easy to digest and you shouldnt have a hard time following the information. I did pick up two things that I will implement into my game. I suppose that in itself should pay for the book, however; you still feel kind of slighted once you finish Erics sections.

After Erics sections, Matt Matros take over for two chapters. Talk about a huge contrast! While you can casually read Erics sections and not really have to think much, Matt is the exact opposite. Matt starts off by saying that he is going to cover basic poker math. Well, maybe its basic if you are a MIT grad. I think Matt would have been better served by dumbing it down just a little bit. By the time I got to the end of Matts second section, I was completely lost and had to reread both his sections very slowly, take carefull notes, and hope that I start to grasp the material better.

So who should buy this book? Well, if you have read most of the poker books out there and need a fix, well then this is for you. If not, then there are many books out there that you should look at before this one.

Who Let The Idiots Out?

So I was reading Jason Kirks blog which can be found here Catching The Antichrist.
In his post titled "Damning The Grind" he talks about losing his love for the game. He attributes part of it online to the way some players interact with others. You know the types, "Nice catch you f'ing fish" and so on down the line.

As I read this, I realized that if I am not carefull, these fellow poker players could do the same thing to me. There is a reason I despise going to the movies, its the idiots in theaters who think we all want to hear their opinions on the movie, or listen to them drone on and on about their lives! I hate these people! If I wanted to hear you, I would have paid you the $9 instead of the theater. I will be the one to go up to them and ask them to keep it down. But it only works for a few minutes, then they start right up again.

If these assclowns can keep me out of theatre, can they also keep me off the poker table? The answer for me is no, but what about the other players? What about the new player that just got interested in poker, comes online, get berated by one of these dumbasses and then never comes back? What about the players that mainly play in the B & M's, decide to get over their fear of the computer? They come online, run into Mr. Assclown, and decide, screw it, I dont need this, back to the B & M.

These idiots are the ones who may dry up the online poker world. What can we do about it? I wish I had the answer. There just seems to be a general lack of respect to one another these days. Its really a sad state of affairs.

As an example outside of the poker world. I ended up getting in a heated debate at an Xbox live forum. A poster commented that he wished Microsoft would more closely monitor the user names because some of them are very vulgar and he didnt like to expose his nine year old daughter to it. (BTW, there is a stated user agreement that this is unacceptable) What was the reponse at that forum? Just about every single poster stated some type of freedom of expression nonsense and that they shouldnt have to worry about other peoples kids. WTF? I posted in agreement with the gentleman that this should not be tolerated. I got blasted for that. You would not believe the insulting comments posted just because I stood up for decency.

As long as I am on this topic, I might as well alienate much of the poker blogging world. Thats ok, I am not a lemming, and I am not afraid to speak my mind. At the Tao Of Poker, Dr. Pauly has some guest posters for a while. The first one is named Daddy who apparently is a very popular blogger of the past. Well, his post didnt do it for me. In fact I found it to be rather disgusting to be honest. Not so much the content, but the actions after the main thrust of the story.(No pun intended) To be specific its the part with the cousins teddy bear. Talk about disrespecting someone who had nothing at all to do with what was going on. Why would someone think its funny to do that to someone who not involved at all?

Now I am sure it was a fictitous story, I am also sure that Daddy is an entertaining writer, very much more so than me. However; I didnt find it clever, I found it to be writing to the lowest common denominator. Daddy, from everything I have heard about you, I am sure you are better than that.

Well thats my rant for today.

Peace

A Fish Out Of Water

Happy 2006 everyone!

So I have been playing Omaha 8 lately. I have never played Omaha or High/Low before, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone. What an interesting experience it has been.

One of the great things about online poker is the micro limits you can play at. So in my journey into the great unknown of Omaha 8 I start at the most micro of microlimits, .01/.02 PL. Thank god for this limits, because I have no clue what I am doing right now!

I knew that with all the studying and playing of Hold 'Em that I have been doing that other games would suffer. I can still play Stud, but not like I used to. As for O8, I have no idea when to raise pre-flop, or when to call raises pre-flop. I get easily confused as to whether I have the low or not, I realized the minimum high you need to feel like you have a shot is the nut straight. It is an interesting new world I have entered.

I feel pretty good about my post flop play, because it all goes back to hold em at that point, but my god I need some work on the pre flop. I have SS2, so I have started reading through PLO and O8 sections. So much to learn. However; this has been a great way to keep my Hold Em game sharp. It breaks the tedium that can be Hold Em sometimes. I have also read that playing these other games can help sharpen your Hold Em skills. One can only hope. If you have any tips for O8, I would love to hear them

The old bank roll is at $977. Not much movement, in part because of all the O8 I have been playing.

The soon to be ex-girlfriend really doesnt get poker. She knows that my roll basically went broke in November and what I have now built it back up to. Her words of advice and confidence to me? Well here are three things she has said.

1. "Take out $700 while you still can."
2. "Dont do anything stupid and lose it all."
3. "You will regret not taking that money out once you lose it."

Well thanks hon! I have confidence in you and your endeavors as well!

She has no clue about what I am trying to accomplish. She just sees money now and that I should take it while the taking is good. She does not see it as an accomplishment of mine that I was able to build this back up. I am sure she thinks of it as luck, and that it will run out. Ah, my next woman needs to understand the poker player mindset.