8:46pm: Well, I was busy running errands all day, so I now need to play 16 games in 3 hours in order to reach my monthly quota. It’s probably not going to happen, but I’m going to try my best. The blog has definitely cut into my poker volume, but that’s a distraction that I’ll welcome with open arms because I enjoy web design and blogging just as much as I do poker. With that being said, I need to get to work. I will post a full report after the session. And in case you’re curious, the errands I had to run today included:

1. Taking GF to eye doctor to pick up her new glasses
that I’m almost sure she will never wear.

2. Eating lunch

3. Getting new cell phone (never buy a Treo 700w, mine broke on me)

4. Getting a new Wireless-N laptop adapter (my internal adapter on my laptop was a POS)

5. Coming home and realizing that I forgot that my laptop doesn’t have a PCMCIA slot - new HP laptops no longer have them

6. Going back to the store, returning said adapter for one that fit in an ExpressCard slot

Which leads me to now, so I must get going. Good luck to anyone playing a night session with me. More later..

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

3:58am: Well, I didn’t get to put in a long session because I was distracted by the Hornets-Raptors game (Hornets win), and then I dedicated a solid two hours writing the article below (must read). This means that I will have to play a mandatory 16 games tomorrow to hit my monthly quota, so it should be an interesting day to look forward to. However despite the lack of volume, I was able to get in a very efficient session, as I finished 4-0 on the day. Ironically, all four of my opponents were extremely aggressive, so it was fitting that I got to use my own advice in a practical manner in such an immediate fashion. There is something I must say that I didn’t mention in my article regarding aggressive opponents. If you’re going to sit back and let them do the betting for you, you have to, and I repeat - HAVE TO be able to play good “defense”. That basically means that if you’re going to be passive (calling more than you’re betting or raising) you have to make sure your reads are spot on. Look for betting patterns. Experience tells me that if they’re overbetting the pot all day, and then all of a sudden they throw in a pot-sized bet, or under bet the pot, they’ve probably got it. On the other hand, if they usually throw out pot-sized continuation bets, and then all of a sudden, they throw in a huge overbet, they usually have it as well. In addition to this, if they’re any good, they might catch on to what you’re doing, and then switch it up and take you to value bet city, making you look like the sucker. So be aware of them being aware of you. However, with that being said, apparently none of the four guys I played today caught on, and I was able to win all four games with no problems.

Regarding the movie “21″, I have to say it would be hard for me not to like this movie because it involved three of the things I love most in life: Cards, Math, and half naked women. Fortunately, the movie actually didn’t need eye candy to stand out on its’ own, as it was pretty damn entertaining. Anyone who plays any kind of card game regularly can relate to this movie, as well as anyone who has ever engaged in any form of gambling. The movie is based on the infamous 1970s blackjack card-counting team from MIT, and the book “Bringing Down the House” by Ben Mezrich. Poker players can especially appreciate this movie, as it touches on topics we are near-and-dear to, such as statistically beating a game billed as a “game of chance” in the long run. The main character of the movie, played by Jim Sturgess, does a good job in his role of playing extremely smart kid turned rich-corrupted-sinner, and has to decide which life he wants: the pure life, or “the good life.”

As always, I won’t spoil the movie, but all of you need to get up and go see this, because who wouldn’t want to see a movie about making money, cards, gambling, and half naked women? And to boot, Kevin Spacey is an incredible actor and he very rarely (with the exception of K-PAX) chooses movies to act in that are not GREAT.

Overall, I give it a 7.0 on my VERY strict scale of 1-10.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

by trujm

People who watch me play are always amazed by how passive I SEEM, and compare it to my stats. They think to themselves ‘no way someone that passive can have such a high win %’. This assumption by them is the same idea that indirectly leads me to victory, as you will see in the article below.

For most people, this is perhaps the single hardest aspect about playing heads up Texas Hold Em: hyper aggressive opponents, and how to deal with them. More specifically, when your opponent is being consistently and significantly more aggressive than you know yourself to be. Some of the common questions asked about these type of opponents are:

1. How do I know when they actually have a hand?

2. How much should I risk with middle/bottom pair when
faced with a large bet?

3. They keep continuation betting over and over and over.
What should I do?

4. How do I play top pair, weak kicker when they
overbet the pot?

5. How do I play mid pocket pairs when facing the dreaded
continuation bet, and there’s an overcard on the board?

and perhaps most importantly…

6. When do I finally take a stand?

None of those questions are easy to answer, and it’s a good thing they’re not, because if they were no one would be able to make money playing poker, as we’d all just be breaking even in the long run. Those who figure out how to handle situations like these are the ones who will flourish and make money, and the ones who passively do nothing to fix the leaks in their game and adjust to these players will be the ones paying their bills. It takes a special kind of person/player to naturally know what to do in these types of situations. These kinds of players make up less than 1% of the population, so don’t worry about it if these solutions don’t naturally come to you. Thankfully, these instincts CAN also be learned, but it takes a lot of hard work - both on your part by understanding and implementing what I am telling you, and also on my part as a teacher by effectively communicating to you how to dissect these kinds of opponents. There’s a number of things you must understand before taking a course of action in any heads up match:

1. What they’re thinking.

In order to understand how to beat them, you need to understand what they’re thinking. If you give off any sort of weakness whatsoever, they’re going to feel like they can take the majority of pots off your hands without any resistance. And you know what? Most of the time, they’re right. That’s why you hear so much hype about “aggression, aggression, aggression, and more aggression.” The problem with these kinds of players is that they take that advice too much to heart. Some of them become so aggressive that it becomes reckless, and you need to recognize when it’s at that point, and how to take advantage of it.

So what is ‘reckless aggression’? You’ll know it when you see it. If an opponent raises 80% or more times preflop, and continuation bets 80% or more times on the flop, that’s pretty much reckless aggression. No one has a hand that often. You know it, and they know it. However, where you will make your money off of that concept is: they don’t know that you know that they know it. Now it’s time to do something about it. But how?

2. Know What they Think ABOUT You. If at any point, your opponent reveals their opinion of your playing style, they’re already putty in your hands. I’ve played against people dumb enough to say things like “Man are you gonna play a hand?,” and it always amazes me when they do, because you should never tell your opponent what you think about them.

With that being said, the majority of the time if someone is being overly aggressive with you, it’s either one of two things. (a) They believe you’re a weak-tight player, and that they can run all over you, or (b) They play like that all the time, regardless of their opponent. Either way, the ball is in your court because they don’t know that you’re willing to adapt to either circumstance.

Regarding the latter, it’s funny how it works sometimes, you’d think calling someone more would cause them to stop betting. However, sometimes with players of this type it makes them actually MORE likely to try harder to bluff you because they are too stubborn to believe that they cannot make you lay down a hand. If you are fortunate enough to be playing against someone like this, just flat calling them is usually the play of choice. Because if you raise, they’re going to fold if they’re bluffing (therefore preventing yourself from extracting chips in future betting rounds), and if you just call and on the off chance they have you beat, then you have minimized your losses. Of course, there are times when you’re going to want to raise for value, but these kinds of players hold nothing more often than they’re holding something so it’s actually more effective to let them do the betting for you.

On the other hand, if they are being aggressive with you because they believe you’re a weak tight player, then the solution is a little bit more complicated than the above case, but still nothing to worry about. Some people, including myself sometimes, operate better under the assumption that their opponent believes they are weak-tight. In this case, you have to be a little more patient: you have to feed your opponent information the whole match that they think is true, only to take them the other way later on in the game.

If they insist on taking pot after pot from you in the 10/20 blinds, let them! After they keep dragging pot after pot after pot, with little or no resistance, they’re thinking to themselves “man this is easy.” Remember, it’s not the amount of pots you win in heads up sit n gos, but rather the one who wins the biggest pots. To be honest with you, despite winning almost 61% of my heads up matches, I only win 44% of my hands! That’s because the bigger pots belong to me, as they should to you. With this “passive early on” strategy against aggressive opponents, what you’re doing is luring them into a false sense of security that you will take advantage of later on when the stakes are higher and the pots are bigger. Sometimes I even go out of my way to SHOW them they made a good decision in laying their hand down, when I have, say, pocket aces or a set early on. It builds credibility for yourself, and more importantly, engraves the idea in his head: “when he pushes, he has it.” I can’t stress this enough: take them one way in the beginning, only to take them in a totally different direction later on in the game.

3. Fight Fire with Fire

If you opponent is weak-aggressive, then any of the two above tactics will work wonders for you. However, against more skilled opponents, there’s really only one way to combat it. Like any good friend would tell the other one at times when they are constantly getting picked on: stand up for yourself. If you need help, start thinking about the odds of the particular situation a little more. If you’ve been dealt K8 preflop, you have King high, and King high is usually the best hand preflop in a heads up match. Let me explain:

If you’ve been dealt one King, theres only 3 left in the deck. Add that to 4 aces and that means your opponent has two chances to be dealt 3 cards that conditionally tie you, and 4 cards that beat you. 49 cards are unseen at the point of the hand, so that gives your opponent 7 outs (3 of them still conditional as they’d have to be dealt a second card higher than 8 to have you beat) to tie or beat you. If you were all in against a lone opponent who had 7 outs with two cards left to come, you’d be ahead, wouldn’t you? Throw in the minuscule 1/16 chance that your opponent was dealt a pocket pair, and you start to realize how strong a hand like K8 is heads up. And what’s more? Add this to the fact that on the off chance that if your opponent has you beat at the moment, you can still outdraw them on the flop. My point is: don’t be afraid to push back.

How to “fight fire with fire” in this circumstance depends on what you want to accomplish out of this tactic and also how deep you are into the sit n go. If you don’t like being faced with hard decisions and would prefer a more tame opponent, and you are in the beginning stages of the match, my suggestion would be to make an early play back at someone to send a message that you are not to be taken lightly the whole match, and they need to be proceed with caution before throwing chips in the pot. This is a more effective line of action against a stronger opponent, because it’s not a very pleasant experience to have someone who knows what they’re doing fire bullet after bullet at you. (See: Phil Ivey).

Showing someone you’re willing to play back at them might not make them slow down any, but it will implant the seed of doubt in their mind that you may be getting sick of them pushing you around. If this is the case, you need to do nothing more than value bet your hands, and stand up for yourself with a modest hand when you believe you are just being pushed around. The strength of the hands you decide to take a stand with should be in direct correlation with the blinds:

NOTE: THESE ARE JUST GENERAL GUIDELINES I FOLLOW AND VARY BASED ON PARTICULAR OPPONENTS. I BASE THIS LIST OFF OF “AVERAGE” A-B-C AGGRESSIVE OPPONENTS

(a) 10/20 blinds: AKs+, 10-10+
(b) 15/30 blinds: AQs+, 9-9+
(c) 25/50 blinds: AJs+, 8-8+
(d) 50/100 blinds: A8s+, any pocket pair
(e) 75/100 blinds: Any Ace, K8+

As you can see, the higher the blinds, the lower the requirements for your calling/shoving range. Keep in mind these ranges when you switch up your style from TAG to LAG, which should probably happen around halfway through the 25-50 round.

So in conclusion, while I cannot give you a direct answer to any of those annoying questions that come up during the course of a match, you are now better equipped to handle opponents who try to muscle you around. It’s going to take time to fully adjust to them, and no one single article can patch a leak this big. However, you are definitely on the right track by having read this, and I will definitely cover more on this topic later. Stay tuned.

7:26pm: Someone requested that I post a chart on outs/pot odds, for future access in the archives, so here it is. Always know how many outs you have before consulting this chart:

2:06am: Despite having played 13 games so far tonight, I have absolutely nothing breaking/shocking to report. Long story short, I’ve split matches (W/L) every single time I opened up two at the same time. The one time I decided to play a single match, I won it. Therefore, I am now 7-6. After the rake, I’m up a handful of peanuts, or something of the sort. LOL

Anyways, I’m going to keep plugging away because I have rent due in 2 days, and also because I need the following:

1. New Phone (my treo 700w broke)
2. New Router (keeps dropping connection)
3. To meet my monthly quota of games played

So in the name of accomplishing ANY of those three things, back to the poker!

More later…

*EDIT*, 3:50am: Well, it was a long session - probably one of the most stress free sessions I can remember in recent history. That’s probably because:

1. Nobody had any sick, dramatic, improbable comebacks.
2. I didn’t get 2-3 outered all night long
3. Every hand pretty much held up. Only problem was, sometimes I got the money in bad tonight, which is usually not a problem with me.
4. Someone actually made my day by slowrolling me. It made me smile. They flopped the strong cold nuts; I had A10, flop was J J 10, and the blinds were 50/100 so I went all in shortstacked and he takes like 45 seconds to call. By that point I knew I was getting slowrolled, so I had prepared myself for it. I knew unless he had quad Jacks that I had SOME outs. It would have been funny if running aces came. That would have made my weekend, but alas, it did not.

Anyways, that’s enough for today, standard +3 game session. That’s about all you can really expect winning 60% of your games, putting in 5 hours a day. If I put in a true 8 hours, I’d probably be looking a +5 margin. However, too much poker makes me cranky, and I don’t think anyone has the stomach to play poker 60 hours a week, especially heads up.

More tommorow…

by trujm

Between discipline and patience, is one more important than the other when it comes to the game of poker? Well, actually, no. They correlate with each other, but each attribute is equally crucial as far as profitability is concerned. How, then, does discipline play a role in whether a player is a winning player in the long run, or one who loses consistently?

Discipline is involved in a wide range of topics and situations in poker. It takes discipline to build and maintain an adequate bankroll. It takes discipline not to “donk off” the money you work hard at earning, and most importantly it takes discipline to walk away from the losing sessions with piece of mind and sanity knowing you can and will eventually “get the money back.” Disciplined players are always are of the fact that in the long run, they are winning players, and also that they are making an hourly wage at the table, including the losses. Discipline applies to both poker related activities and non-poker related as well. For example, disciplined players maintain a somewhat regular schedule of play, keep records of their play, and hopefully maintain a healthy and productive lifestyle. Non disciplined players typically play and act totally on impulse. It may come as no surprise that impulse decisions and poker usually do not make for a good combination.

Another way in which discipline plays a role in poker is in the ability to get away from a hand that you don’t necessarily “want to lay down.” We all know that feeling that courses through your veins. You truly believe you have the best hand, and you’ve felt this way the whole hand, and then suddenly you hear those words, “I raise” coming from the other end of the table. You evaluate the situation, think about every last detail (player position, player image, possible starting hands, and how the turn and/or river could have possibly hurt you, etc). Deception is a key tool in poker, so is this person just simply “making a move on you”, or are they sincere? Even if they are sincere, do they really have you beat? Those questions are not easy to answer, and there is no magic formula for coming up with the answer. I call this the “X factor” in poker: instinct. What do you feel in your gut? What kind of read on both the person and situation have you made?

The only thing close to an answer I can give you is that your ability to assess the situation and get a feel (and yes, a lot of the time it is just a “feel”) for where you’re at in a hand are, in my opinion, the most important decisions you make in poker. You can throw pot odds, implied odds and statistics out of the window. It takes discipline to have good instinct because a lot of the time your instinct tells you that you are beat, but it takes discipline to trust your instinct and to make decisions. Also to be noted is that when i speak of “good lay downs”, I’m not just talking about big pots where you have to call half your stack and you only have top pair with top kicker. I’m also talking about the minute-to-minute, small to medium sized pot decisions, such as holding a pocket pair with one over card on the board in a three way pot. I’m also talking about when you hold top two and the river card put a flush on the board. Or maybe I’m also talking about when you have an over pair but the person who only called you the whole time suddenly raises on the river when the highest card on the board pairs. Sticky situations like those call for rational and smart decisions, so you need to keep the mistakes to a minimum, especially in these situations. Don’t get me wrong, there is much more to poker than just knowing when to lay a hand down. However, everything starts with discipline and patience in poker, and trickles down from the top.

The rest will take care of itself.

12:10am. Well, it was a good run while it lasted. I took my GF out to dinner and a movie tonight, and as soon as I got home I strapped in for a late night session. I loaded up two matches, everything is going as planned: I have both opponents down to about 700 in chips to my 2300. I then put the first guy away to make it 18 straight, and I have the second guy down to 540 chips, and then this happens:

PokerStars Game #16327749093: Tournament #82676568, $50.00+$2.50 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/03/29 - 00:58:41 (ET)

Table ‘82676568 1′ 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (2460 in chips)
Seat 2: bigmac64 (540 in chips)
bigmac64: posts small blind 15
trujm: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Tc 7c]
bigmac64: calls 15
trujm: checks
*** FLOP *** [6c 9c 5d]
trujm: checks
bigmac64: bets 30
trujm: calls 30
*** TURN *** [6c 9c 5d] [Qc]
trujm: checks
bigmac64: bets 30
trujm: raises 90 to 120
bigmac64: raises 150 to 270
trujm: raises 2100 to 2370
bigmac64: calls 210 and is all-in
bigmac64: shows [3c Jc]
*** RIVER *** [6c 9c 5d Qc] [3h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trujm: shows [Tc 7c] (a flush, Queen high)
bigmac64: shows [3c Jc] (a flush, Queen high - Jack higher)
bigmac64 collected 1080 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1080 | Rake 0
Board [6c 9c 5d Qc 3h]
Seat 1: trujm (big blind) showed [Tc 7c] and lost with a flush, Queen high
Seat 2: bigmac64 (button) (small blind) showed [3c Jc] and won (1080) with a flush, Queen high

From there, he was able to come back and take the match as my Ks8s didn’t hold up to his J10off, at 75/150 blinds all in for the match.

….and so it ends, thanks to everyone for the support, and I look forward to ATTEMPTING to give it a try again someday.

Now, on the rest of my session. Results tommorow…

*EDIT*, 2:03am: 7-4 so far on the day, and I’ve got no complaints. I’ll take 7-4 all day long, and then some.

*EDIT*, 3:52am: Ok, I can’t keep my eyes open anymore. It was a good session overall. I would have loved to keep the streak going and hit 20, but that’s not how it usually works, and you know it. Anyways, I finished the session 10-6. Good night guys, and will update tommorow..

3:52pm: Ok, now it’s just getting ridiculous. I’ve now won 17 heads up matches in a row. I’ve never really been a “streaky” player, either way. That’s because a normal 10 game span for me typically goes:

WWLWWLWLWW, or something to that effect.

Nothing really stands out to me about that, except for the fact that I’m incredibly consistent, so this run is somewhat new territory for me.

But, needless to say, I welcome this streak with open arms. The only thing that’s puzzling to me about it is that I’m not doing anything differently. I’m just playing “my game”. What is “my game”, exactly?

1. Pot Control (most important thing, IMO)
2. Not drawing to marginal hands
3. Making people pay to draw to theirs
4. Playing BOTH “the person” and “the cards”
5. Tight/aggressive early, and Loose Aggressive late

That’s really about it. Simple as that.

All personal accolades and records aside, I need to put in a heavy session later tonight, because I have personal monthly volume quotas that I hold myself to, and I need to average 12 games/day over the next 2 1/2 days to fulfill that.

More later…

2:26pm: This is a VERY helpful article originally written by Alan Schoonmaker. I originally read the article 4 years ago, and I wouldn’t be the player I am today without having done so. With that being said, I strongly recommend you set aside 15 minutes at some point to read this.

=================

If you hit a pinball machine too hard, a sign flashes “Tilt,” and the machine stops working. When a poker player gets hit by too much stress, the effects can be almost as visible and much more destructive. If you tilt a pinball machine, you lose a little pleasure. If you go on tilt in poker, you can blow your bankroll or, if it is too extreme or lasts too long, even lose your home or business. Because luck has such huge short-term effects, you can go on tilt without losing any money this time, and you might not even realize that you’re off balance. However, since the danger is so great, you must constantly watch out for it.

Most of us have experienced brief periods of tilt, and some players have lost control for weeks, even moving to larger games or switching to the craps tables, trying desperately to get even. Since tilt is so common and destructive, this four-part article will cover all the major issues:

I. Avoiding it

II. Creating it

III. Exploiting it

IV. Coping with it

This starts and ends by discussing ourselves, while the middle two parts focus on other people. Of course, we profit when other people go on tilt, but avoiding it or coping with our own emotions is much more important. We can gain a little from another person’s foolishness, but if we go on tilt and stay there, we can lose a great deal.

We all know what tilt classically means. However, for the sake of clarification, I’ll use a broader definition: “Tilt” means someone is making plays for emotional reasons that he would not normally make. Wild aggression is just its most visible form. Another form is to become so upset, frightened, or convinced you can’t win that you “play scared.” You might fold good draws with pot odds or not raise with pocket kings. Your play deteriorates so much that the “I can’t win” belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This form of tilt is less dramatic and noticeable than wild aggression, but it can be equally destructive. Perhaps you won’t have such dramatic short-term losses, but because it is harder to recognize, this form of tilt can last much longer, slowly destroying your bankroll.

1. Avoiding is Much Better Than Coping.Of course, you must learn how to cope with tilt, but avoiding it is much better. Good professionals emphasize preventing problems more than solving them. Good dentists tell us to brush and floss. Good doctors recommend diet and exercise. Good lawyers try to keep us out of court. Exactly the same principle applies here: If you wait until you’re on tilt before taking corrective action, some of the damage will have already been done, and your problems will be MUCH harder to solve. So, stop tilt before it starts.
2. Knowledge is Your First Line of Defense.The first step is to acquire two types of knowledge. First, you need to understand poker thoroughly. Mason Malmuth once wrote: “Emotional control is … aided by a thorough understanding of how the game should be played.” Without that understanding, you may overreact to events that would not severely upset a more informed player. For example, I’ve read many threads on P5s forums stating that someone went on tilt because he played well but was beaten by bad luck and stupidity. Yet, the poster’s own words clearly reveal that he played badly and deserved to lose.Or, take bad-beat stories. Many of them show that the storyteller doesn’t understand the most basic element of poker, the odds. You probably have seen people bitterly complain that they raised with A-Q suited and were called and beaten by an “idiot” with K-2 off suit. They seem to believe that their hand should never lose, but it’s really only about a 2-to-1 favorite, meaning it will lose about one-third of the time. In many situations, the “idiot” would have been absolutely right to call.The second kind of knowledge can come only from detailed, accurate records of your own results. If you’re a long-term winner, these records will show that the bad beat you just took or tonight’s “huge” loss is trivial, a tiny fraction of your total profits. Even if you’re a long-term loser, good records will show that tonight’s loss isn’t that important. That’s why so many experts recommend treating tonight as just part of one continuous poker game. When you put a bad beat or tonight’s loss into a larger context, you’re much less likely to overreact.
3. Identify Your “Triggers.”Although a solid foundation of knowledge is essential, it is not enough. By definition, tilt is an emotional overreaction, and emotions obey their own, partly irrational rules. We all have done stupid things for emotional reasons, and we should understand the factors that trigger emotional reactions.The three most common triggers are alcohol, bad beats, and losing too much money tonight. Alcohol is particularly dangerous because people often think they can “handle it,” even when its effects are obvious to others. The same illogical thinking that makes so many drunk people drive makes them believe, “I can play better drunk than they can play sober.” Other triggers include playing for larger stakes than usual, being “card dead” for hours, obnoxious people, being hungry and/or tired, inept dealers, software problems and bad connections (for online players), and even loud noise or sitting next to an inconsiderate smoker - anything that upsets you. By themselves, none of them may have much effect, but several of them combined can destroy your balance.Triggers are individualistic, and yours may be quite different from mine. You might not even notice things that really bother me, and vice versa. You should therefore remember what caused past tilts, and then avoid as many triggers as possible. Of course, you can’t avoid bad beats, inept dealers, and some other triggers, but you can avoid alcohol, large losses, and many others.For example, nearly all of us have a “psychological bankroll,” the amount we can lose without getting severely upset. It is almost always much smaller than our financial bankroll. You might have a $5,000 bankroll, but get very upset by a $300 loss. If you don’t recognize and stay well within your psychological limits, one bad beat can put you on tilt. You might decide to buy more chips than your usual limit because you’ve “got to get even.” Once you start thinking that way, you can lose control, keep buying more chips, go to the ATM, perhaps blow your entire bankroll, and then borrow money. It has happened countless times.
4. Think About Triggers Before You Start Playing.Some triggers have nothing to do with poker. Problems at home or work, backaches, financial pressures, or anything that troubles you will increase your vulnerability. For example, if you had a bad day at work, argued with your spouse, and have a headache, don’t play poker “to relax.” Instead of relaxing, you could easily become even more tense and play badly; once you do that, it’s just a small step to going on tilt and losing lots of money.
5. Monitor Yourself.You should constantly monitor both your play and your emotional state. Ask yourself again and again: “How well am I playing?” “Why did I make that last play?” “Am I angry, confused, sleepy, eager for revenge?” “Am I feeling the effects of alcohol?” Many people have taken huge losses because they did not realize how much their drinking or other factors had affected them.There are lots of similar questions, but most people don’t ask or answer them. The poker culture is extremely anti-introspective. We’d rather focus on how other people think, feel, and act than seriously analyze ourselves. In fact, your opponents will often see that you are on tilt or approaching it long before you do.
6. When in Doubt, Quit.A later column will focus on what to do when you are clearly on tilt, but don’t wait until you are sure you’re on it. If you see signs that your play is deteriorating, and/or you’re getting upset, go home. I cannot count the number of times that people - including me - have ignored that advice. We may recognize the signs but stay because we won’t admit that we’re not playing our “A-game.” Or, we may think, “Perhaps I’m not playing my best, but this game is too good to leave.” Sometimes we may say it even when the game is too tough for us. We’re so off balance that we can’t assess ourselves or the competition.You may think I’m being too conservative, but we’ve all seen players who are on tilt lose serious money in wonderful, average, and terrible games. There will always be another poker game, but if you go on tilt and blow your bankroll, you won’t be playing in it.

11:46pm: I was thinking about narrating these, but both opponents basically handed me the match in one form or another, so there was no real strategy in each match other than to just wait for a good spot to finally call each of them when I knew I was ahead.

These are streaming videos in flash format, so just left click each one and it should open up your flash player in a new window.

Streaming Video
Video 1: For the Tie | Video 2: For the Record