I am exhausted after (too self-indulgently) grinding it out into the wee hours last night and then working a long day at my day job today. I’m writing this post to bind myself to a stop loss of the evening of $110. I know from experience that I will probably not play my A game tonight because of my tiredness (and distraction from the WSOP on TV).

RAN HISTORICALLY BAD TONIGHT, didn't follow the stop loss b/c I was playing well and was mostly avoiding tilt. JUST GOT KILLED BY REALLY BAD BEATS, OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN (including going a whopping 0-for-4 with aces, after getting it in good with them each time)

this just happened and was enough to get me to quit:

Full Tilt Poker $33 + $1.50 Heads Up No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t25/t50 Blinds - 2 players - View hand 966747
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BB: t2060 41.20 BBs
Hero (BTN/SB): t940 18.80 BBs

Pre Flop: (t75) Hero is BTN/SB with A A
Hero calls t25, BB raises to t150, Hero raises to t940 all in, BB calls t790

Flop: (t1880) K 3 7

Turn: (t1880) K

River: (t1880) Q

Final Pot: t1880
BB shows K A (three of a kind, Kings)
Hero shows A A (two pair, Aces and Kings)
BB wins t1880

BR $2230

Edit: Also went 1-for-10 with flips tonight

used the entire timebank, thought through the hand, and realized through logical analysis I very likely had the best hand--probably the sickest online call I've made:

Full Tilt Poker $33 + $1.50 Heads Up No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t25/t50 Blinds - 2 players - View hand 968465
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): t1670 33.40 BBs
BTN/SB: t1330 26.60 BBs

Pre Flop: (t75) Hero is BB with T Q
BTN/SB raises to t100, Hero calls t50

Flop: (t200) J 8 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t100, Hero calls t100

Turn: (t400) A (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t200, Hero calls t200

River: (t800) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t930 all in, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls t930

nh, i think shoving turn is good if you think hes the type to barrel scare cards but still vn call

Being awake to 6am after a meh run in a minishot at the 57s is prob not the best time to (spew)play, was somewhat steaming. I'm villain obv, nice call.

keep it up OP; sick call btw

ggs, thought you were a tough opponent, especially the second game

sick

The tournament window closed hehe. I had "another herocall :'(" typed out in chat for when you (i though, after I bet) would have called, on that KKJ or w/e the board was. ggs

ggs my friend, that was a lot of

br update: just under $2200 after rakeback tonight

This week didn't go well at all, though I think I have mostly bad luck to blame. Even though I've been playing my B+ game, I thought that was enough to still be +EV at the 33s--hope I'm not wrong. I'd attribute about $100-150 to monkey tilt alone. I need some rejuvenation!

Playing on permatilt, pretty much impossible for me to not run terribly nowadays..

Bankroll down to $2040.. :-(

Still alive, just getting clobbered by work and haven't had time/the right amount of mental energy to play--bankroll is stuck at just over 2k

nothing new to report, but proud of this hero call:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, 23 Tournament, 15/30 Blinds (2 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (SB) (t1815)
BB (t1185)

Hero's M: 40.33

Preflop: Hero is SB with 4, 4
Hero bets t60, BB calls t30

Flop: (t120) 8, A, 7 (2 players)
BB bets t120, Hero raises to t240, BB calls t120

Turn: (t600) 2 (2 players)
BB bets t210, Hero calls t210

River: (t1020) K (2 players)
BB bets t420, Hero calls t420

Total pot: t1860

Results:
Hero had 4, 4 (one pair, fours).
BB had 10, 9 (high card, Ace).
Outcome: Hero won t1860

GL op, but did you try hiding your name cause you didn't black it out in one of the screenshots but you did in the rest.

xxxxxx, yeah?

No comment, might have blacked it out in all of the rest of them for a reason...

reader's digest version of why nothing has happened here: Life sucked for all kinds of reasons the last month (including me being extremely busy at work). I had kind of a breakdown one night and, without wanting to elaborate atm, realized I was playing poker for a lot of unhealthy reasons. On top of that, I experienced horrendous luck in live poker that made me hate poker and think supernatural forces were conspiring to kill me. These hands occurred within a week of each other (and in probably 8 hours of play total).

Hand #1: I have AA. Someone raises, someone else calls, I reraise a little under the pot, small blind calls and the original raiser calls. Flop is 5 7 9, two clubs. The small blind bets something really small (like 1/10 the pot), I raise to 5/6 the pot, and the small blind flats. The turn is another 7. The small blind shoves. I instacall. The small blind turns over Q 8, no draw apart from the gutshot. The river: a 6. pot size: $640

Hand #2: I have AA again, this time at a 1-2 game (above was 1-3). UTG raises to $18, the guy to his right calls, I raise to $55, and the guy to my immediate left instantshoves for $300, of which he doesn't even have chips for yet since he's waiting on receiving his rebuy. The guy was in for 5 buyins in an hour and raising every hand. It gets to UTG who has a pained look on his face. He calls, leaving $150 behind. I shove. UTG calls. Board: K 7 6 Q 5. The guy to my left on tilt has K 7--he beats me. But it doesn't matter- UTG hit a set of queens. Pot: $1150

Hand #3: I have KK at the 1-3 game. Straddle is on the table and it's on me first. I raise to $24. It gets folded to the straddler, who calls. I've played with the straddler quite a bit--he's a bad player who never folds preflop and almost never gives up on trying to win the pot. He also seems to constantly think I'm bluffing him. Board is Q J 6. It gets checked to me and I fire a bet of $30. There is an instant check-raise to $90. I go all-in for $240 total. UTG, who had been running like god that day, says **** it and calls. The turn is a 9. UTG looks like he's ready to muck. River is a 5. I turn over the kings. UTG sheepishly turns over a set of 5s. Pot was ~$500.

Those hands, combined with general life tilt and running bad online, led me to decide to quit playing poker, or at least severely scale back playing. For about a week, I barely played at all, and I found that I was much happier and more productive at work, which helped me enjoy my free time more at home. On a lark, I played a $6 6 max super turbo knockout tournament two nights ago just to have something to do as I watched TV. I found immediately the time off had helped quite a bit--I was actually enjoying playing, for the first time in awhile. Despite some bad luck early on, I became a chipleader without about half the field left and never really let up until 25 people were left and I was down all the way to 25/25. Despite being severely short stacked, I was confident and having fun. I played my best and before I knew it I was the chipleader, with twice as many chips as the next guy, heading into the final table. I dominated the final table with my stack and finished first easily for $900. That kind of victory seemed impossible just a week earlier when I was obsessed with playing poker and playing a ton. How ironic.

So, online br is back up to $2.5k. I was ready to quit, and still think playing poker a lot is bad for my personal life, but I've decided to keep at it and see what happens. My goal is to not play when I am tired, tilted, whatever, and to not let it get in the way of relaxing and pursuing other interests. For a long time, a ridiculous % of my thoughts outside of work concerned poker, just b/c I enjoy the game so much and am enamored with poker culture in general. That, however, is always a bad mindset for me, as it leads to problems in my personal life which ultimately make their way into my poker game. I want to keep playing but more leisurely. We'll see what happens.

For those curious about my hu sng success since starting the challenge:



<insert frown face>

5/638 in the PLO $2.5k rush guarantee for $300ish ($2 buyin w/ rebuys)--meanwhile, dropped something like $150 on hu sngs. Apparently I'm a much better mtt player...

BR $2765, hu sngs going well today

small milestone reached: online bankroll up to $3k for the first time ever

had a great day at 25NL, 25PLO, 50PLO to make the final $170

Have you read Tommy Angelo's book? Especially his thoughts about quitting.

Seriously, I was SUPER TERRIBLE for monkey shove-a-stack tilt till I read about quitting and tiltlessness.

Just practice quitting and standing up when losing becomes easy and it feels good.

Tilt is all that is holding you back right now. You gotta realise that you'll get no where if you don't work on it, if you do, great things can happen.

GL and subbed.

Thank you for the encouragement and advice. I agree that tilt is the main problem (my graphs don't really allow for any other conclusion!), and I do think I'm getting better at dealing with it. I haven't read Angelo but I am at least a little familiar with his philosophy and really enjoyed listening to him on the Pokercast. One of these days I am going to have to force myself to watch the video series. I read a book (The Poker Mindset) similar to Elements a few months ago and it helped. I will say, though, I am realizing tilt has become less about the bad beats and more about my general attitude. Bad beats are the triggers, but they draw from a well of anxiety and frustration because of my job/life situation right now. I'm working on becoming more positive and more focused on being +EV in life :-)

GL. I'm playing HU SNG's too, so if you need some help, PM me.

BR up to $3080 after winning a bunch of hu sngs

Here's a pretty nice-looking graph for the last 7 days/last 99 matches:

Can't complain about running bad for awhile, on a sick heater over my last 200 and especially my last 100: