Illness of Mind...aka I trip my AutoDestruct (again)...aka I trip my AutoDestruct (again)
With less than nine dollars I bought myself a bowl of Tilt Soup hotter than anything I have ever tasted.
The meal began when I used those 9 bucks to win a 26 buck token. Yay me. I am a successful token whore, with about a 66% win rate on a small sample size. I took that token and entered the satellite to FT 14k Guaranteed – my first $150+13. Deep stacks, full ring. So far, so good. I used my typical blogger MTT strategy and managed to win my seat without any major fireworks. 9 bucks transmogrified into a 163 dollar buy-in just like that.
Now, the 14k tourney itself is beautiful – great structure, only about 160 playahs, very leisurely in the early going. To be clear, I am happy with my play in this MTT. I doubled and doubled, survived a dominated queen making me frown and continued to plug away. With 65 left I was in the top 15 when I decided to kill myself off.
In recent days I have exited like a quasi-donkey from the last two 75ers I’ve played, but today I exited this tournament (whose smallest payout was 180 bucks – great ROI on 8 no?) like a fool. An impatient boy. Not good.
Uberboo.
Sheets, the well known online mastermind was at my table when I found AKo in MP and 3x’d for 700. He came WAY over top me with 3500 (almost half my stack). His play had honestly been pretty loose and I didn’t know what to make of this. Rational Me, not just Outcome Aware Me wishes I had folded.
I didn’t.
But I didn’t play strong either. I called, then pushed a flop I missed completely. His Queens called and I was done. I started that hand with T1100. This is after 2 hours of play where I held my own and played good poker, risking my stack a couple of times to create the necessary momentum to push people of hands. After all that, I chose to play as dumbly as possible against the most dangerous guy at the table.
I still believe I am capable of making the leap to becoming a successful higher buy-in MTT player, and I believe in the power of written/stated goals. It is my goal to be playing profitably at the 75/109 level consistently by the end of next year. However I am 0 for my last 3 tries despite having put myself into very strong position to at least money all three of those. My game in broad brushstrokes is looking strong. It’s just that I am destroying my own runs. If you have never done this to yourself, I envy you, because when you’re as competitive as I am, it hurts to know you’re defeating yourself.
In order to make the leap I want to, the most important hurdle before me is not improving my mathematical analysis or reads. It is to look deep within myself for those impulses that are driven by ego and neutralize them. I believe I called pre-flop because I didn’t want to be pushed around by Sheets and I had a hand that could reasonably be ahead of his range. There was clearly the desire to bust him circulating in my head too - perhaps for the illusory bragging rights that would afford. If that even was the real Sheets. In any case, anyone who knows anything about competition knows that the successful mind is the cleared mind. Mine was anything but.
Another adjustment I will be making is that I will be closing out the table chat at least for a while to measure if this is affecting my game. There was a player at my table who really got under my skin successfully – and online there is just no reason to let that be a factor. If anyone is stopping by and says hi and wonders why I don’t respond, it’s not cause I am going being rude, it’s cause I won’t see it. Shoot me an IM if you want to chat, although depending on the state of things, I may or may not be in the right frame of mind for it. It should go without saying that I would appreciate if anyone watching could refrain from engaging my table in smack talk and the like – I am new enough that I find it distracting and it throws off my reads on what they are doing. It certainly doesn’t explain why I chose to play like a fucking moron every 170th hand in these things, but every little adjustment may help advance the chains.
One last note: Jo watched me fuck this MTT up royally. In my experience NLHE MTTs are exercises in boredom (mostly), pressure (far too often) and reward (rarely, but often enough to keep me coming back). I am certain I play better when I have people I respect around to bounce things off. Nonetheless, it is embarrassing as hell when you do something like this and don’t have the anonymity playing online should afford you. At moments like that part of me wishes no one knew it happened. Of course, it’s good there’s a witness if you can learn to shame yourself into playing less like an anemone. Let’s see.
Laytah.
Current Big Game CallOuts: Boobie-Lovah, Change100
Next Up: Your Name Here.
The meal began when I used those 9 bucks to win a 26 buck token. Yay me. I am a successful token whore, with about a 66% win rate on a small sample size. I took that token and entered the satellite to FT 14k Guaranteed – my first $150+13. Deep stacks, full ring. So far, so good. I used my typical blogger MTT strategy and managed to win my seat without any major fireworks. 9 bucks transmogrified into a 163 dollar buy-in just like that.
Now, the 14k tourney itself is beautiful – great structure, only about 160 playahs, very leisurely in the early going. To be clear, I am happy with my play in this MTT. I doubled and doubled, survived a dominated queen making me frown and continued to plug away. With 65 left I was in the top 15 when I decided to kill myself off.
In recent days I have exited like a quasi-donkey from the last two 75ers I’ve played, but today I exited this tournament (whose smallest payout was 180 bucks – great ROI on 8 no?) like a fool. An impatient boy. Not good.
Uberboo.
Sheets, the well known online mastermind was at my table when I found AKo in MP and 3x’d for 700. He came WAY over top me with 3500 (almost half my stack). His play had honestly been pretty loose and I didn’t know what to make of this. Rational Me, not just Outcome Aware Me wishes I had folded.
I didn’t.
But I didn’t play strong either. I called, then pushed a flop I missed completely. His Queens called and I was done. I started that hand with T1100. This is after 2 hours of play where I held my own and played good poker, risking my stack a couple of times to create the necessary momentum to push people of hands. After all that, I chose to play as dumbly as possible against the most dangerous guy at the table.
I still believe I am capable of making the leap to becoming a successful higher buy-in MTT player, and I believe in the power of written/stated goals. It is my goal to be playing profitably at the 75/109 level consistently by the end of next year. However I am 0 for my last 3 tries despite having put myself into very strong position to at least money all three of those. My game in broad brushstrokes is looking strong. It’s just that I am destroying my own runs. If you have never done this to yourself, I envy you, because when you’re as competitive as I am, it hurts to know you’re defeating yourself.
In order to make the leap I want to, the most important hurdle before me is not improving my mathematical analysis or reads. It is to look deep within myself for those impulses that are driven by ego and neutralize them. I believe I called pre-flop because I didn’t want to be pushed around by Sheets and I had a hand that could reasonably be ahead of his range. There was clearly the desire to bust him circulating in my head too - perhaps for the illusory bragging rights that would afford. If that even was the real Sheets. In any case, anyone who knows anything about competition knows that the successful mind is the cleared mind. Mine was anything but.
Another adjustment I will be making is that I will be closing out the table chat at least for a while to measure if this is affecting my game. There was a player at my table who really got under my skin successfully – and online there is just no reason to let that be a factor. If anyone is stopping by and says hi and wonders why I don’t respond, it’s not cause I am going being rude, it’s cause I won’t see it. Shoot me an IM if you want to chat, although depending on the state of things, I may or may not be in the right frame of mind for it. It should go without saying that I would appreciate if anyone watching could refrain from engaging my table in smack talk and the like – I am new enough that I find it distracting and it throws off my reads on what they are doing. It certainly doesn’t explain why I chose to play like a fucking moron every 170th hand in these things, but every little adjustment may help advance the chains.
One last note: Jo watched me fuck this MTT up royally. In my experience NLHE MTTs are exercises in boredom (mostly), pressure (far too often) and reward (rarely, but often enough to keep me coming back). I am certain I play better when I have people I respect around to bounce things off. Nonetheless, it is embarrassing as hell when you do something like this and don’t have the anonymity playing online should afford you. At moments like that part of me wishes no one knew it happened. Of course, it’s good there’s a witness if you can learn to shame yourself into playing less like an anemone. Let’s see.
Laytah.
Current Big Game CallOuts: Boobie-Lovah, Change100
Next Up: Your Name Here.
posted by Iakaris aka I.A.K. at 6:57 PM
10 Comments:
Iak, you wrote:
the most important hurdle before me ... is to look deep within myself for those impulses that are driven by ego and neutralize them.
This really resonates with me -- as I've been struggling with the same issues. All too often, I know even without the benefit of hindsight that I'm letting ego take control and not following the path of right thought/right action, and yet ...
And the odd thing of course is that when one finds the "zone", or the "art without art", it's so easy to recognize.
Saying this and meaning it is liking growing up over night: "the most important hurdle before me is not improving my mathematical analysis or reads. It is to look deep within myself for those impulses that are driven by ego and neutralize them."
Pure genius dude. You ready for the big games.
_________
I wrote the above withoutlooking at the other post. Then I read Mike's piece - he hit the same note.
These were clearly TWO very important sentences.
I have to agree with what they both said - that was a very key revelation in your game.
It is true, you were your own worst enemy at the end of those three tournaments - but think about that for a moment. I would much rather have to 'get past myself' than to feel like I couldn't overcome the play of others.
Your early game is strong. Your middle game is strong. Your final-table game is strong. You need one simple little adjustment in your late game, and that is to be patient and let the others knock each other out. In each case you had a very solid amount of chips. (btw - you missed a "0" on this hand recap, you had T11000 not T1100.) Fold the bad hands, fold the good hands, fold the drawing hands. Why risk anything at that point? It is true you can chip up, but it is equally true that you can chip down because others are desperate and will push with anything - and they will. And sometimes they will catch. And sometimes they will have better cards than you. I've said it a million times before, especially to myself, but why risk your tournament life at that stage of the game?
You know all this though, you just have to get past that urgency and apply it more often. There is no doubt in my mind that you will get past all this very soon and will start finishing ITM on a consistent basis in the higher buy-in tourneys.
All kinds of poker wisdom from you this week. Awesome stuff.
Thanks for making it out to The Mookie last night.
Iak, your problem is exactly like mine. I blow up on random hands, making stupid plays when I know better. It happened last night in the Mook when I couldn't lay down ATs of all hands. But reading about your experience helped me figure out the root of the problem. It isn't stupidity, but rather pride and ego. Thanks.
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You'd never show shaky hands to patients would you?
Don't do it at the poker table either ;)
I predict within a month some variation of "OMG I WON!!!!1111" type post will show up here.
Sorry, when I see someone make an incredulous statement at the tables, I just can't help myself. That guy telling sheets, "any 10 and you were gone" well, yeah, I guess that's pretty ovbious buddy.
Anyway, every time I load up one of those things, I bring you bad luck, since I never witnessed any of your deep finishes. So maybe there's a link.
I enjoy supporting the online pros like sheets, shaniac, JohnnyBax, and Diablo VT as they have answered a lot of my questions while playing at the tables and I guess I'm just used to talking to them since they have literally hundreds of railbirds when they play the 50 and 100$ rebuys on Stars. Not the same case here though.
Again, I apologize.
"the most important hurdle before me ... is to look deep within myself for those impulses that are driven by ego and neutralize them."
This is something I will remember the next time I sign into the mongo $3 rebuy tourney.
Seriously, even at the stakes I play, it's something to think about. My thoughts run the likes of, "This dude can only afford to play a $3 rebuy tourney and he's pushing with a high M??? He's probably got JTs or something."
I get mad when I call and he flips pocket aces against my hammmer....
Unfortunately, I don't have CJ's luck....
One of the genuine mysteries of poker is why we do things that are in hindsight so obviously wrong when we are put on the spot. Irrational and ridiculous but we all do it.
If you take up Yoga or something and it helps, let us all know please!
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