I am donkey boy

I was donkey boy tonight.

Going on tilt can be very subtle and I did it tonight without realizing it. I went to my local club and bought a rack of $200 on the 8/16 limit hold'em game. The table was full and I was determined to play only good cards. I waited at least an hour and ½ folding every hand.

Finally, when I was in the button I looked down to see AA.
The first bettor bet the second raised and everybody called the raise to me. I made it three bets. Everybody called. The flop comes 2,4,5 different suits. The first player bets, the second raises everybody calls to me and I make it three bets. We lose two players. The pot is huge for this game. The turn is a Queen. The first player bets, the raiser drops and three people call when I raise. The river is a three. I have two aces and a 5 high straight. Everyone checks to me and I bet and seat three raises. He played 4,6 and beat me out of that huge pot with a six high river straight.

I fold hands for about an hour more when I get into a hand with AK suited. The very same player playing Q 3 suited, beat me with a runner-runner flush after I flopped a King. I bet it all the way and he was an automatic calling station. He caught his flush on the last two cards.

I noticed a short handed 5/10 No limit game beginning over in the corner. I went to join in because I was disgusted with this donkey game.

Well, here is where it gets crazy. I bought in for $300 and lost that on a bad call.

Then $200 more and I played two loose hands in a roll and rightfully lost both of them.

I bought $200 more and played a Q,10 suited calling $25 from late position. The flop came k j 7, and I was bet into $30 in a $80 pot. I raised to $75 to see if I could win it right then with my draw. He called me and the turn was a 5. I bet 75 and was called and then the river ten came.

I knew I was open ended but I didn’t look back at my cards. He went all-in putting me all in for $90 more. I called thinking I had made the straight. He had Kings and I only had 10s.

I felt like I had just started to play poker. I thought he was bluffing and I didn’t have the hand I thought I did.

B.T.W. I had let myself get bluffed out of a pot earlier that had I thought it through I would have stayed in and won.

I left down $700 really frustrated at me because I wasn’t focused and was not in touch with my emotions.

I had not noticed I was not concentrating and was just playing a big game with no focus. Dumb, Dumb, & Dumber.

Mental laziness is a real enemy at a poker table.

I was smart enough to leave the casino and drive home trying to figure out how I missed me and played so badly.

After, having some toast at home I remembered the old adage, that goes something like, “after falling off a horse, you need to get right back on again.”

So I did some internal inventory and realized I could focus on an on-line game. I knew just playing well for awhile would improve my mental status and if I won, all the better.

I bought into a No Limit single table tournament on Party Poker for $100 and an hour and ½ later finished in 2nd place having won $500.

That was probably the best thing I could do for myself. I needed to refocus and play well in a controlled environment (a tournament). When I was out I was out.

I was reminded by my play and my results that I am a good player. I could beat 9 out 10 players in a $100 buy-in tournament with out any lucky hands involved.

Now, as I said in a previous post. I need to beat about 400 players in a $100 buy-in tournament for some real money.

Stay tuned, I hope to be writing about that, sometime this year.


For those of you who want poker instructional content. The following quote is a favorite of mine.
For the rest of you... deep thought ahead warning....

“The uniqueness of poker consists of its being a game of chance where the element of chance is itself subordinated to psychological factors and where it is not so much fate as human beings who decide. In this respect poker is the game closest to the Western conception of life, where life and thought are recognized as intimately combined, where free will prevails over philosophies of fate or chance, where men are considered free moral agents - at least in the short run - the important thing is not what happens, but what people think happens.”