Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Rage

Oh the rage.  The rage can no longer be contained.  The last 3 times I have played poker just horrible horrible things have happened to me.  So many of them were my fault, though, and that's what makes it all the worse.  The first session was a 21 hour 1/2 bender which involved me failing to relinquish an amazing seat in a pretty good game, long after the chance I was playing well had completely zero'ed out.  And of course I was winning a good bit, like 2+ racks, then through the wee hours of the very early morning took a 6 rack downer before the whale finally gave back the full $20k he had managed to take control of from his case $2000 that somebody showed him out to get out of the fucking credit card machine at like 8pm jesus fucking christ why couldn't we all have just gone home.  I really, really don't want to do that any more.  I'm  not very good at poker as it is, really, and I'm definitely not good enough to just give up all my advantages (good rest, good mental game, game selection, quitting time selection, etc) to play through the night with one whale and 6 pros (who were admittedly all also off their best games) and pretend like I have this huge win rate or something.  Like, was I a winner in that game?  Sure.  Was I a much bigger winner than I'd have been in the 60 the following day had I just gone the fuck home and come back fresh?  No.  Forget "much", even a bigger winner at all?  Probably not.  Then the last two days I've played I just failed to make super obvious quits at super obvious times (up $5000, game just got shitty...quit...or at least drop down...just go up for the day, planning to leave in 45 minutes anyway, just go home!) and got super obviously punished (JJ vs 85s and 85s on 442?  I cannot win that hand obviously....TT vs 85s on 532?  I cannot win that hand.  643ccd I make a king high diamond flush and do not win.  AA v 44 on AQ3?  No good)  then wanted to destroy something beautiful because of it.  Also I spent 75 minutes driving to the casino today (SEVENTY FIVE) and it's currently above 80 degrees in my office because...jesus fucking christ there is no good reason for that other than I have lost the will to fight constantly with Danielle about keeping the house at a reasonable temperature so I'll just be miserable and that will be that.

Really I'm as close to flying off the handle as I've been in a while and just need to take a break.  Will the ants take over the house?  Can we hit 85 degrees in the living room?  Will Lundy win $15k, or just $10k?  Does she think she's the smartest person on Earth, or just the second smartest?  These are the questions that dominate my day.  I just checked my stats, and I have broken even for the last 400 hours, which is weird since everyone on Earth just assumes I've been absolutely killing it non-stop all the days of all the weeks this year.  I can assure you I've been killing nothing, which is probably for the best since it would't be pretty if I just went off like a bottle rocket, which is apparently what the fish who got me barred from the bike did last week, standing up and declaring "fuck you all" to the entire table (then saying he was going to shoot me...remember I wasn't even there) and not getting so much as a 20 minute time out.  Honestly...jesus, whatever, I give up I can't even rage properly.

5 comments:

Ace Redman said...

Jesse, love reading your blog even when you are on the highs and lows of the poker rollercoaster. I find the hardest thing to do is to leave a table when I am winning - I think i can win more and then when I lose a bit I think I can win it back. Sometimes I give it all back and more. Sometimes a 3 hour session turns into a 30 hour session. Occassionally I book 9 rack wins!!

I also play in soCal but only NL and smaller stakes. Keep believing in yourself and keep learning. Maybe you can write a blog on your philosophy of when it is time to quit a table!

DosXX said...

With all due respect, 400 hours is nothing. I wish I broke even for 400 hours at 1/2+ this year. You are playing in games where the aggression is the highest it's ever been for you and your edge is the smallest. If you want to win all the money at LHE, you probably need to be prepared with a 1000BB bankroll and prepared for break-even years . Otherwise, you need to make better game selecting decisions to keep yourself in a positive frame of mind if breaking even for 400 hours is going to make you seek and destroy.

armor said...

I am really curious if there is any way to compute / estimate / compare winrate in a 1/2 game with 1 whale and 6 pros vs a 40 game with one other pro and the rest your regular Commerce fish.

jesse8888 said...

You know Dos, you're absolutely right as usual. The real root causes of my rage are extremely numerous, and the losing (or lack of winning) is just a small part of the pie.

jesse8888 said...

The more I think about it, the more I think it's correct to error on the side of playing in the smaller game with numerous fishes.