Tilt! Tilt! Tilt!

I have a confession to make.

I've been playing on tilt for at least a week now. There's no sense in denying it any longer; the people in our group with whom I am closest already know this from my 10,000 pissed off girly chats every night. Even though I've had some poker success during the week, that success has not come because I am in the right poker mindset. Instead, I've had to get pretty much wasted just to be able to stay calm enough to play anything even remotely resemling good poker, and at best that's all it's been -- remotely resembling good poker.

I spent some time overnight trying to think about exactly what has me on tilt. When I got up this morning, it seems somewhat clearer to me, at least some of the things. Some of this stuff (most of it, really) has no business tilting me, and in fact goes to show just how easy it is to take me off my game. That is one of my many personal weaknesses and one that has direct application at the tables. Just another part of the constant struggle I go through every day to try to improve my game and rein in those things that counteract me playing my best poker. But nonetheless, I'm here now and I'm telling you, there's some shit out there that literally has me on tilt before I even sit down at the pc. Then it only gets worse during the night, and inevitably like in this week's Riverchasers tournament I end up donking on purpose or targeting one particularly annoying player at the table, making plays I know I will lose with just because I want to go out, in a vain attempt to shake this tilt that's been lingering on me for days. It's ghey and it sucks.

For starters, some of the stuff that goes on in the chat box in these blonkaments is just plain ridiculous. I don't care who you are and I don't care how completely, totally 100% accurate what you're saying is. A lot of people have written about this recently, and there's a reason for that. It's not appropriate. Although I was not the literal first blogger to play in the first blonkament, I've been playing in them consistently for nearly three years now, back since the very early days of the WWdN. In fact, I might have literally played in more blogger tournaments than any human being alive, given the focus I have always placed on playing regularly in these things and the length of time I've been doing it. I almost bet that really is true. So I am qualified to talk about this stuff, and I'm here to say that when you are launching personal attacks at other people in the chatbox in our private tournaments, you are despoiling them. Period.

Now don't get me wrong. A little good natured ribbing is fine. Fun, even. I am the very first person to type in "nice call" or "well played" when some asshat calls my preflop allin with T9o or of course the JackAce. Invariably they win with their garbage hands, and I'm not trying to sit here and say that I have never let someone know that I know that they just made a bad play. I do do that from time to time, very rarely actually as I typically opt for the "gl all" or even "nh, gl" when I get uberdonked out of a blonkament and leave it at that, but I'm not trying to paint myself out to be some kind of an angel here. I'm being real about what goes on in these things. But one thing you will notice about even when I might type this sort of thing into the chat following a truly, indisputably horrible play -- I type in my one comment about the play itself, tops, and that's it. It's over. I don't sit around and harangue someone at the table for the next 3 minutes, 10 minutes, hour or whatever.

And more than that, one thing you never, ever see me do is launching personal attacks at people at the tables. In fact, even right here in the blog where I am known for making an occasional rant or two, I don't spend my time attacking people personally. That shit has no place in my blog. Are you people really not able to take a step back and see what your personal jabbing back and forth looks like to the other people at the table? Have you really lost your sense of perspective that much? I mean, it's one thing to question the poker play of someone, and to do so in a short comment or two and then move on. Frankly, I've seen most (not all, but definitely the vast majority) of the people who play in our games do this at least once or twice over time and frankly I think some degree of that is hard to keep out of the games with any real consistency, nor do I think it is any kind of a problem. But getting into personal attacks against people in public right at their table? Engaging in back and forth insults over an extended period of time in this kind of a public forum, even if tangentially related to one's poker plays? I'm telling you guys objectively: it is ridiculous, it looks ridiculous, and everyone seeing it thinks it's ridiculous. And make no mistake: it's not about what other people think about this stuff. It is ridiculous, objectively speaking.

This is the thing, guys. The people who started these regular blonkaments in the first place a few years ago, the people who helped form our ghey little group and who so wanted to have a regular forum for us to hang together, chat together and play together in groups, we never, ever would want this kind of stuff going on in the chat in these games. There is such a thing as girly chat, and if you feel the need to rant about a particular individual personally, or to rant for 5 hours about a particular person's poker play, that is a much better forum for such issues. Take it from me, especially over the last few weeks I've been doing a lot of that, and I apologize here to those of you who have borne the brunt of my angry girly chatting. That's something I need to and plan to work on as it is, but I never, ever do that in the public chat box during our weekly tournaments.

Now don't get me wrong. No one here is trying to tell you how you need to act or how you need to chat. I say this because I've mentioned this here before in perhaps a bit less of a direct way, and certainly an increasing number of other bloggers have written about this same thing in their own blogs as this seems to be happening more and more often, and basically it has gotten the same predictable and quite absurd response. No I'm not ordering anyone to act a certain way, and no I'm not telling anyone that they're not "permitted" to do anything or say anything. But, the very relevant point I am making is this: the people who play in these tournaments do not like when you do this in the chatbox. 98% of the players would be happier if you didn't act this way. Whether you like it or not, these things were not started to be and are not intended to be forums for you to launch personal attacks nor to follow someone around who indeed made a refuckulously horrid play against you and harangue them for an hour. It pisses 98% of the players in these things off when you do it, and more directly, it makes the tournaments far, far less enjoyable and less attractive to play in when you do it. And that my friends makes it wrong.

Now, having seen the highly predictable responses to this stuff when it's come up in blogs in the past, I can already see these same few offenders typing the same silly responses now. I think I will address some of those in advance.

1. "I can do whatever I want, I paid my buyin." True statement. You can do whatever you want. But it isn't right. No one's saying you aren't allowed to type this stuff. You just shouldn't, and you are ruining 98% of the other players' times to various degrees by doing what you are physically permitted to do.

2. "Hoy you hypocrite I've seen you rant about people ten thousand times in your blog." This one is one of my personal favorites. Read the blog guys. I will say all I want about the way someone played a hand. That's attacking someone's poker. I don't typically spend my time attacking someone personally though, and there's a reason for that: I don't actually have personal issues with most people who read here and who play in our tournaments, and I don't like to use my blog as a forum to make someone specific look or feel bad for some personal issue involving them. Tell someone they made a poor play, and you won't hear me complaining. Tell someone they made a poor play for 45 minutes in the chat, and that's not something that I ever do. Ever. And I'd like to see where in this blog I take my valuable time attacking someone on a personal, as opposed to a poker, level.

And before you get cute, I freely admit that recently in the comments here, I let a couple of people have it pretty good for some things they said in the comments. Let me just say that when someone starts off a comment with "no offense", and then goes on to call what I'm doing "assinine" and to accuse me of just trying to exert control over other bloggers, they're gonna get it, especially when I'm kinda tilted already as it is. Plus, notice that that is done not in the chat box of our tournaments, not even in my blog, but in the comments to my blog. Believe me, I wanted to post that whole comment and my tremendous response to it here. But I didn't. Because say what you want about me, but I'm never looking to use my blog to make someone look bad on a personal level in front of my readers. If you make a truly bad poker play against me you are likely to read about the bad play here. But you're not likely to read about what a dickhead I think you are on a personal level. And frankly I rarely ever like reading about what a dickhead someone is on another blog either, though of course I defend anyone's right to say what they want in their own blog.

And again, this isn't a post about what people write in their blogs at all. It's about the way people behave in the chat box during our tournaments. Like I said above, no one is going to try to physically stop anyone from being a penis head in the chatbox. That decision is going to have to be made by each individual himself, in each specific situation. What I am saying though is that the people who came before you, the people who started up this entire tradition of our group getting together regularly to play this game we all barely know and love, the people who still make it a priority every week to come together and play in these things, we don't like what a lot of the chat in these things has turned in to. And the "we" I am referring to represents a good 98%+ of the people who play in the tournaments. These are the facts, what the people do with those facts is of course out of anyone's control.

Anyways, the shit that's been going on in the chat box in our private tournaments for the past couple of months I would say definitely contributes to my tilt these days. Just about everyone hates it, and I love our private tournaments and I love what they represent, and I hate knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that a few people's antics in the chat make so many of the truly nice, fun and interesting people I've played in these things with for over two years not want to show up anymore. That is clearly a suckdickity outcome (that's a bad thing, not a good thing in case it's not clear), but it's just as clear that it's already happened and continues to happen as we speak, and I wish it would change. It bums me out that I have no control over changing that.

I guess the other thing that's been tilting me lately is some of the recockulous luckboxery I've been seeing from the same people again and again and again, combined with those same people then turning around and denying their luckboxery and even accusing other people of the very same luckboxery that they themselves have exhibited so obviously. Just like the first thing I talked about above, there really is no good reason why this seems to tilt me so bad, but it does and that's something I need to get cracking on fixing since I always aim to play my best game. I mean, I've read posts this week where people have actually taken the time to write an entire post about how they're not really a luckbox at all, and in the very post where they make this argument, they go on to show five or six examples from just one hour of play which make it so fucking recockulously obvious how lucky they got that the whole thing reads like a poor childrens' joke. I've written about this many times before, but getting refuckulucky in a tournament that you do well in is part of the game. It is rare that someone lasts deep into a big tournament and does not get lucky at some point along the way. And getting lucky of course includes getting a lot of good starting cards, it includes getting strong hands when your opponent gets slightly less strong (but still strong) starting hands, and it includes things like winning 5 races in a row, it includes flopped 5 sets during a tournament, it includes river suckouts in key spots, it includes all of these things. I like a guy like Alan who wins the Mookie this week and then has the balls to get on his blog and post all the awesome starting hands he was dealt. That's great, and of course it doesn't take a dam thing away from his performance in the tournament. He played his good cards well, got a little lucky, stepped up at the end and won the tournament. Big deal. There's no insult buried in admitting that one got some good cards to play with. It's what happens when you win a tournament. The only insult is to the readers when you luckchuck all the way to the final table and then try to claim it was all skill and that luck played no part in it at all.

But when I see these people posting how they did not lucksack in a tournament to pick up pocket Aces twice, pocket Kings twice, and to flop 3 sets in just the first hour of a tournament ("but I played all my hands so well!!!"), it just makes me sick. I mean, my reaction to a post like that is obviously not important, their lucksackery still exists no matter what they say of course. But it really drives me crazy. I've complained about this for a year or more in the blog. You get lucky as shit and win a tournament, don't act like you did it all on skill. It's called keeping it real. Be like Astin who is man enough to post all the AA and KK and QQ and AK hands he was dealt. Be like Alan the other day. Be like The King who won his first BBT tournament in the Riverchasers this week, and happily posted a kickass post about his three flopped sets (I think there were actually five) and about the 3-outer he hit in a key spot late in the game. That's what a real Man does. Only a pussyshit lucksacks his way through an hour or three and then goes on to his blog and claims it was all skill and how awesome he played is what got him where he ended up without referencing the fact that he couldn't go fucking five hands without flopping a set or top two pairs, and didn't go 10 minutes without picking up a premium starting hand or better yet, flopping huge against someone else's premium starting hand. Somehow the idea has been formulated and then perpetrated by dickheads that one can get lucky but then make that luckiness disappear by revising history and claiming it didn't happen. We're all there watching, you shitforbrainses! Your luck already did happen. Can you really be such schmike (yes that is the plural of "schmuck" in my language) to think you're going to trick us into thinking you were playing with air that whole time? We just saw your cards for the past four hours!! Christ. I'm getting tilted all over again just typing this stuff.

And please guys, don't win 18 races in a row and then bitch for 30 minutes in the chat about the one you lost. And don't call 313 allins with Queen-high and suck out every time, and then lose your shit on someone in the chatbox when they call you down with Ten high and beat you. It's like I just said above -- we've all sat here watching you play for the past few hours, for the past several tournaments, etc. We've been seeing the plays you've made. We know what you've been pushing and calling allins with. Even bloggers aren't fool enough to be tricked into forgetting how we've seen you play recently. How about a little fucking ownership, a little fucking personal responsibility here? Own your fucking lucksackery. You play like a monkey, you get rewarded with repeated lucksackery, and then you're going to go apeshit when that same lucksackery bites you in your own ass? I don't get it. And it tilts the shit out of me, at least it does lately anyways. Those of you who played the blonkaments with me this week will know, I donked myself out of them with idiotic cards for the most part, just because I was pissed. The only one I didn't do that in was the Mookie, and that's because I know my Mookie Curse was already in effect and would take care of that anyways -- even if someone flopping frigging quads on me when allin preflop with my higher pocket pair over their lower pocker pair hadn't happened when it did, it was only a matter of time in the Mook for me of course. But otherwise I've been playing like an abject shithead in these things, and for the most part it's because I am letting the luckshits get to me and especially letting the "dirty chatters" get to me.

Do us all a favor. Have all the personal battles you want with other bloggers. Enjoy yourselves. But do it in a more private forum. Yes I laugh my ass off sometimes at the shit I see in the chat, including in the Riverchasers last night which for whatever reason always seems to bring out the worst in some of the bloggers in the chat box. But it's not right, and it makes people who should never feel this way, feel like not playing with our ghey little group anymore when they themselves were the people who created these tournaments in the first place as a chance to get together, and most importantly to have fun. I need to try to remember that more myself, but so do a lot of us. Do what you can to keep the ridiculous hour-long post-elimination diatribes out of the chatbox, and keep the personal attacks and the personal issues away from everyone else who comes out to play and to try to win a few bucks from their friends and have a fun time. Every time I see this stuff, invariably from people who had never even heard of a poker blog when the rest of us were starting up the whole idea of these regular private games together a few years back, it concerns me. I foresee a world where some people might even want to do tournaments that are even more private than the ones we already run, where the password does not get out to the people who are perceived as negatively impacting the experience for the vast majority of everyone else.

So stop acting gheyly. Stop tilting me. Have some fuckin fun in these things guys. I promise I will do the same.

Donkament tonight, 9pm ET on full tilt. Not sure if I will make it there or not (who am I kidding, I will fucking be there for my weekly poker therapy), but the $1 rebuy is always a great time and hopefully something that won't get people too worked up to remain civil in the chat. And don't worry, no matter how nice people are to each other in the chat, I'm still gonna get trashed in the thing. I just wish Buddy would be on air getting trashed and broadcasting live with me.