Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Boogster's DC Cash Game - Aug 29, 2005

I was playing a tight, reasonable game for about 3 hours, and I was slightly ahead of my buy-in, and then during my last 20 minutes I had a melt-down, recognized that I was on tilt, and got out without obligating myself to throw away the remainder of my buy-in. Factors that lead to the tilt, in no particular order:

Poker Exhaustion Tilt: The beginning of the tilt was when I raised on a pocket pair, and misread the board thinking that I hit and made a chunky raise and got a call from the big stack. (Big Stack was gobbling up everybody's all-in bets like there was no tomorrow.) I realized what I had done on the turn, and stopped chasing. Once I realized that I missed the trips, I stopped throwing away money, and my opponent checked it down and showed a larger pair.

Angry Tilt: There is one player who shows up late at this game who appears to neither respect the game nor the players. He needs a den mother to remind him it's his turn to play, takes way too long to make the simplest decisions, and pulls really stupid show-offy crap when he's the dealer. (When you're the dealer, just give us a flop. Don't F*ck around, ok?) Moments before my tilt, he had walked away heavy. It wasn't my money, but that stupid inner voice continued to say 'where's the justice?' Shut up, inner voice.

Where's the Justice Tilt: The big stack did not appear to be a good player, but he was catching on a regular basis. I'm sure he was also running stone cold bluffs on a regular basis, but since I rarely caught cards, there wasn't any way that I personally could punish his bluffs.

Tick Tock Tilt: I had been at the table for 3 hours and hadn't made a single kill. On the few hands I was in, I barely got action at all. As the hours got late, I kept thinking 'One good kill and I'm gone.' I should have had the resolve to say 'I'm up, not down. I'm tired and going home.'

Good Starters, Bad Flop Tilt: One of my last and most expensive hands, I make a raise with premium suited starters. I catch nothing, but bet large into the pot. Big Stack calls. I bet large again, BS calls. I check and fold when the river misses me and I have an Ace high hand. I didn't need to bet large into that board. BS was calling raises with trash hands, so there was a reasonable likelihood that he had a weak pair. However, if I don't have a medium pair against this guy, there's no sense running the voodoo down.

I think I need to set time and exhaustion limits on my cash game play. Big Stack was drinking cheap beer all night, but it wasn't taking him out of his game. It was taking me outside of mine.