Holdem Tournament PermaTilt
I'm sorry. To all the people I've chatted with on the IM the past few evenings. To you if you had to read me yesterday going off on the Razz play of another blogger whose poker accomplishments basically speak for themselves. To anyone for whom I've left some wiseass comment recently. I'm sorry. OK? See, I think I might be experiencing perma-tilt. Seriously. When it comes to my no-limit holdem tournament game these days, I am basically on tilt from before I even sit down to play. I'm going through one of those streaks like I did this past summer where I haven't made it past the first phucking round of the 20k guaranteed tournament on full tilt in more than two weeks. Not past the first phucking round.
Actually, let me correct that. Last night I lasted in the 20k until about 15 minutes in to Round 2. By seeing the flop in exactly 2 out of the first 50 hands. That's right, you heard me right. 4% of flops. 15 minutes into the second round, I pushed from EP with AQo and a short stack, got called by pocket Jacks, and of course IGH nowhere near the money. Again.
Meanwhile, last night I also played in the latest installment of Mondays at the Hoy. I guess for some reason I was just jonesing to find a way to double my junk-kicking goodness in nlh tournaments, as the nightly poundings I'm taking in the 20k just must not be enough to satisfy my tremendous appetite for getting kicked in the taint. The tournament did not disappoint, as within the first 10 hands or so, I found pocket Aces, open-raising the pot 3.5x from the 10-20 blinds to 70, and got just one call, from Jordan in the blinds. The flop comes Q94 with two clubs. I bet out for 70 chips, the size of the current pot, which Jordan calls after not much hesitation. Then the river is an offsuit 7, filling neither straight nor flush draws, so I bet the pot again. Jordan raises me allin, and I am compelled to call with my last 300 chips or so. What does Jordan flip up? Pocket 7s. And IGH in 23rd place out of 24 entrants. Another tournament exit within the first ten minutes or so of play. Pocket Aces cracked again, for the third consecutive time now over the past week.
These early exits are becoming more and more common for me of late in nlh tournaments, and for the life of me I cannot understand why. Am I the one who told Jordan to call a pot-sized bet on the flop with just pocket 7s and two overcards on the board, with the bet coming from the guy who open-raised it 3.5x preflop already? Pretty sure that wasn't me. Did I tell the anus the other night in the 20k to call my 3x preflop raise with my pocket Aces when he was sitting on just a soooted Hammer and a large stack? Did I make that flop come 742 rainbow? Was that me? I forget.
A couple of months ago, I realized that the leak in my holdem mtt game was that I was playing and raising with too many hands preflop, and pushing a bit too hard on the flop against players who had already shown early hand strength by either raising preflop or calling a preflop raise. This time, that is definitely not the case. I am playing patient, aggressive holdem, as evidenced by my 4% of flops seen in the first hour of the 20k yesterday. I know this is just bad luck (btw, I phucking hate it how everyone just blames the concept of "variance", whatever the fuck that is. Try bad luck, that's what it is. Vary this!), but this latest streak of bad luck is really taking its toll on me. I'm not fun to be around or to chat with while I'm playing, and frankly I'm hardly even fun lately to chat with about poker when I'm not playing, like the next morning as I'm writing these posts.
Luckily, much like this past summer, I have non-holdem poker to turn to when my holdem game isn't happening and I can still make money. I won the WPBT Razz tournament on Sunday night, along with $210 cash money into my full tilt account, so that's all good. Last night I commenced my new plan to grind out as much of that $500 reload bonus full tilt owes me by playing a 2-4 razz cash game, and over about 90 minutes I managed to book nearly $140 in profits playing in two sessions. So this permatilt I'm experiencing is not actually related to my bankroll. My roll is about $300 larger than it was a week ago, and probably $500 larger than it was 3 weeks ago. I'm making money at the game of poker, so this isn't the ramblings of a guy who has just lost a ton of money.
Much the contrary, I am playing winning poker overall these past couple of weeks. But nonetheless, all of those profits seem to be coming out of HORSE sngs, PLO tournaments, stud hilo or razz cash games. It's great to be able to turn to those games, where frankly I find that my skill advantage over most of my opponents is actually much greater than it is at holdem, even though I've won by far the most money playing holdem online than anything else. But, I have to be honest here, I'm not really interested in playing exclusively non-nlh games tonight, tomorrow night and every night. I want to play that phucking 20k tonight, if the Hammer Girls will let me anyways. I want to try another 20x180 sng on pokerstars. But why bother? Why the F bother when every time I sit down to a holdem table, I find myself getting phucked? Why bother with holdem at all?
posted by Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo @ 8:02 PM
11 Comments:
man, i thought i was the king of losing with AA. i'm not having a good run of it lately either. it's been over a month since my last decent MTT cash. but, i still sit down and expect to win every night. i'm a rock head that way. GL
Smokkee, I appreciate that you're a good sport. I didn't realize how tilty I have been lately until last night when jeciimd and drraz basically kicked me out of their IM chat for being an ahole, and then this morning I found myself basically yelling at my work buddy when describing last night's poker exploits. I have been having a horrible run lately in the nlh tournaments, no doubt. I guess it's been a while for you, me and Iak in the big ones. That's interesting.
Keep your eye how much you've won overall, not your individual losses.
Do one of those thepokerdb.com self-look ups with the ITM% and overall ROI%, I'm sure you'd be happy with the results.
Please, your bad luck is nothing compared to mine.. besides, isnt getting fucked a good thing?
Drizz, you make a good point about thepokerdb. The thing is, thepokerdb is simply not reliable at all. For example, thepokerdb does not even have my final tabling of the 20k (then 17k) guaranteed, nor my 11th place finish a month or so later, even though I have the screenshots to prove that both of them happened. Without those two cashes, I can only imagine what thepokerdb has to say about my overall ROI and ITM%. I don't recall if they had my final table of the $50 deep stack nlh tourney either way back when.
People use thepokerdb like it is the word of god. That shit is just not reliable, and I know for a fact that they miss a whole bunch of cashes, at least where full tilt is concerned.
Good ideas though in general, certainly with my nlh tournament track record I probably shouldn't get so bogged down in individual losing streaks. I am constantly working on my tilt (or lack thereof, hopefully).
Thanks for the comment as always.
You know, Hoy, I feel your pain. Your post reads a lot like all of my posts from one or two months ago. But I have to say that I think you made an error in explaining the 77 v AA hand. You did raise preflop, and I did call. On the flop, you also raised and I called out of position. But on that turn, I believe I bet, and you did one of your pause-raise moves. Even if I didn't bet out, you did do that pause-bet move to signal weakness. So, I knew you were strong. Sorry dude, but this is one of those rare cases when blogging can bite you in the ass. I re-raised and you pushed all-in, although I think all you had left was 180 or so. Whatever the case, I hope I didn't ruin your poker evening last night, but I played my read. BTW, preflop and on the flop, I had you on AK or so. After the pause-bet or pause-raise, I adjusted a lot higher.
no worries mr. tilty.
btw, thepokerdb stats for full tilt only go back to 6/4. your 17k final table was probably before that.
I was devastaed after my 29th place exit in the cancer charity event when we both had A6, but I got runner runner flushed. Yeah, it's only one tourney, but where do you draw the line? You're talking about a week or so of not doing well in the 20K. Big fucking deal. The cashes, in your case, totally outweigh the early exits, so just take it in stride. I try to look at it as like when I play Razz or Stud H/L cash games...I only have to win around 1/15 hands to make a profit. I'm sure you know this as well. So keep the chin up man, I'm pulling for ya'.
Call it variance or call it bad luck, or call it whatever you want. It STINKS!!!! Watching your bankroll go down by 10K over 3 months on just terrible beats over and over can really wear you down.
So, yeah, I feel your pain.
I think these kind of swings are normal and should be expected, but it's mentally tough. It's one of the reasons I don't run to many MTTs even though I enjoy them.
Anyway, I think I have a fix for your megatilt. I had a cryptic line in one of my recent posts that you you commented on. Drop me an email, and lets chat about it (see my profile).
Just read this and i can definitely feel your pain.
For the record, your recap of the Razz MTT was the funniest thing I've read in a while, and it's no surprise someone as cool as our boy smokkee would have no problem with it. I am still chuckling and in fact it's the first thing I've read about Razz that I could actually follow. I have to say, I was only half kidding about the meltdown post I expected if Byron didn't adjust the rankings right...
I watch you play a lot (usually when we're all in the 20k i have your and smokkee's tables open too). I know for a FACT you have tightened up your early hand selection. This is just fucking bad luck. And having bubbled back to back in 75ers I am generating steam too without much work. But the difference I can look to leaks to plug, I don't think this applies to what's been happening to you lately.
Lastly, your environment has been unsettled lately. The kind of NLHE MTT game you play is very read-dependent and that requires a lot of concentration. With the girls going through sleep disruption, it's bound to affect your ability to play with focus. That doesn't apply to the hands you mentioned, but it may play a role in good hands you miss when you're not at the table, etc. Nothing you can do about it, except realize the situation's temporary. All three of us are gonna hit something soon, not a doubt in my head I swear.
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