How does it happen that money doesn’t become money any more? When is it that the only thing you see is chips? The stakes are going up, but the game is the same. When betting $20 all-in once used to be a big deal, and shelling out $100 in a NL Tournament home game was once one of the scariest thing you ever did, and then suddenly you are at a place when calling a raise with 78s for $40 is not a big deal and re-raising $200 on a stone cold bluff is completely natural, and playing nightly $100 MTTs is as easy as breathing.
When is it that you start thinking of expenses in terms of Big Blinds and going to dinner in terms of a re-raise. When is it that the money from gambling justifies whatever expense you have because an expense might be covered by the next all-in bet. When do you start worrying?
I ask because it’s all becoming intertwined. Money on the table is just chips and money in real life is just bets on the table. It’s an odd feeling. Strange days indeed.
To catch you up. I took most of my profit from my big MTT win, $3000, and cashed it out. I then continued to win at reasonable stakes ring games and cashed out again, another $2000. So, from my low a couple of months ago of $22, I have cashed out $5K. I had $1600 left on Party and $400 on Noble poker that I put there to try to cash on their bonus. So I was up $7000 total if you count the virtual dollars.
… and that is part of the worry, isn’t it? They are virtual dollars to me. It’s all twisted. Money is chips and purchases are big bets and, oddly enough, real money online is starting to feel virtual to me, like health points in a video game…
But when does virtual money become real money with my mind in this confused state where money is chips and chips are frags and frags are not anything like money at all? Why is it all melding together yet staying so damn disjointed? I am confused. Up and winning but confused and scared of what I might be becoming.
$400 on Noble poker isn’t real money anymore, my mind tells me. What is the justification for that thought? My bankroll is $1500 on Party. That is my stake. The money on Noble was just put there to get some free cash. Since I played the site and didn’t like the site, the $400 has just been sitting there, untouched and … well, a little forgotten. It isn’t money any more. It is some credits on a video game I don’t like.
I took a loss on Party, dropping down to $1100 and I needed to get away. Away from Party because my mind was starting to connect those 500BB’s back to reality. I dropped $500 bucks. My mind was starting to realized that just three months ago dropping a half a grand would be heart breaking and life altering. I would have quit poker then. But now, it felt too natural and I didn’t care.
So, this warped mind of mine, where reality and virtual reality are starting to merge together, where a tank of gas is nothing more than re-raise and giving my kid $2 for an overpriced hotdog at a ballgame is nothing more than a laughable big blind, came up with a plan. That Noble money isn’t money anymore my broken mind begins to reason. I have my stake on Party, it is damaged but still more than Greg Raymer’s wife gave him to start his gambling career. So the Noble money was ‘free’ money, just a little chunk of what I had already won, and if I dropped it all it would be no big deal.
It became my official gamble it up fund. And I did. This weekend, I put the whole wad on a single NL game and won $600. So my Noble stake became $1000. I followed that up again by gambling that $1000 in another single game of NL Hold’em. I killed. I turned $1000 into $2600 in a matter of an hour. I was sky high.
… but was it money at all. It was my gambling fund. A pool of money that was there just to play with. But suddenly it was more than double the amount in my bankroll. My mind began to connect again. $2600!!! Just take it out. Back to reality…
That was not to be. It didn’t take long, but my mind began to justify again. It is earmarked money, I justified. Earmarked to take a shot. Earmarked to gamble it up. When were these gamble it up credits going to become money again? The answer is never. $100K or bust. WSOP or bust. It’s not part of my BR at all. It was not real money!
Of course I lost it… well most of it. That’s what playing $1000 tables without a bankroll will do. You can’t absorb the blips. And I blipped back down $2000 and then another $200 and I have $400 left. I am back to where this insanity started. Or am I? My holdings are. But how about my mind, and my heart, and my sensibility.
About a month ago I told a story about losing $1000 and being torn up. About thinking about it a week. About my heart pumping and about being humiliated. What is strange now is that this didn’t hurt. Not in the least. That can’t be good, can it?
So I am worried. $1K on Party. $400 on Noble. $5000 in the bank. Vacation coming from the wins. Everything seems OK in the greater scheme of things. But the underlying cracks are there. I liked gambling it up. I really liked it. Getting beat didn’t hurt me at all. How could so much change so fast?
Where am I now? What will the future hold? If I drop my remaining $1400, what will I do then? I am scared and I am wondering how I will adjust. Will grinding out $100 NL tables be acceptable for me any more? I am determined to try to get myself back to reality.
… we shall see
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Poker is like...
… fighting with your wife.
I have never won a fight with my wife. I have been right a lot of the time, but I have never won. Hell, even when I got what I wanted, I still lost. I am remarkably bad at winning fights and she has a sixth sense for verbal sparring that is impossible to defeat. Her tactic is undefeatable and her use of it is unrelenting. The move is so simple as to be comical in its simplicity. Never admit anything. When you are behind, raise the stakes. Keep the pressure on and never ever relent.
When I argue, I try to use logic and focus on the problem at hand. When she fights, there is no logic and she brings everything into the mix that she needs to win. I am stuck in the moment and she is using everything at her disposal. When I get a foothold with some bit of logic that seems to make sense and pins her into a corner, she comes over the top of me and brings up something unrelated and with which I have no footing. Her game is constant aggression and it puts me on my heals. If I play into her or I try to call her down, she just turns up the heat even more. If I call again, she moves all-in and I unquestionably fold.
I am a weak passive and she is the ultimate maniac. The only way for me to win is to flop the nuts and have it hold up to 5th street. But that doesn’t happen very often and by the time it does, she has my whole stack.
To win at poker, you have to play the way my wife fights. Aggression, aggression, aggression! You don’t have to be a maniac, but you have to play to win and that means betting and raising a lot.
There is an old axiom that it takes a better hand to call than it does to raise, but I often wonder, sitting around at these weak passive tables, what percentage of these players have actually considered what this means in terms of their game. To me, it became clear in February when I really took some time to consider why I wasn’t winning consistently. I blindly decided to add more aggression to my game and suddenly everything turned around. Just adding blind aggression turned me into a winner. Whenever I was going to call, I raised instead. Whenever I was going to check, I bet instead. If I was going to call when I knew he was really strong, I folded instead. Boom, I was a winner.
This blind aggression has been refined over the last few months, and what was totally without logic but was winning me money now has a basis to it that I understand fully. “It takes a better hand to call than it does to raise”! If you understand why this is, then you will understand big bet poker. The rest is easy.
Consider this hand from two nights ago:
I am playing 4d5d from late position in a NL Hold’em game. It is limped to me by 3 players. I raise to 4xBB. I get one caller. The flop is 6,7,10 rainbow and he checks. I bet almost the pot. He calls. The turn is a 3 completing my straight. He checks and I bet again, pot sized. He re-raises me but only doubles my bet. I push all-in. He calls and shows 89 to take my stack.
What a terrible example, huh? I lost.
Well, not really. I played this hand really well. He played this hand poorly. I will win a lot of money in the long run by playing my way. He will lose a lot of money by playing his way. Understand why this is and you will understand how to win in the NL Hold’em rings.
My wife asked me afterwards how I did. I said I lost money. She gave me the look and I considered defending myself. I considered explaining logically how my losing money was just like her winning a fight. Then I thought better of it. I had lost enough hands for the night.
I have never won a fight with my wife. I have been right a lot of the time, but I have never won. Hell, even when I got what I wanted, I still lost. I am remarkably bad at winning fights and she has a sixth sense for verbal sparring that is impossible to defeat. Her tactic is undefeatable and her use of it is unrelenting. The move is so simple as to be comical in its simplicity. Never admit anything. When you are behind, raise the stakes. Keep the pressure on and never ever relent.
When I argue, I try to use logic and focus on the problem at hand. When she fights, there is no logic and she brings everything into the mix that she needs to win. I am stuck in the moment and she is using everything at her disposal. When I get a foothold with some bit of logic that seems to make sense and pins her into a corner, she comes over the top of me and brings up something unrelated and with which I have no footing. Her game is constant aggression and it puts me on my heals. If I play into her or I try to call her down, she just turns up the heat even more. If I call again, she moves all-in and I unquestionably fold.
I am a weak passive and she is the ultimate maniac. The only way for me to win is to flop the nuts and have it hold up to 5th street. But that doesn’t happen very often and by the time it does, she has my whole stack.
To win at poker, you have to play the way my wife fights. Aggression, aggression, aggression! You don’t have to be a maniac, but you have to play to win and that means betting and raising a lot.
There is an old axiom that it takes a better hand to call than it does to raise, but I often wonder, sitting around at these weak passive tables, what percentage of these players have actually considered what this means in terms of their game. To me, it became clear in February when I really took some time to consider why I wasn’t winning consistently. I blindly decided to add more aggression to my game and suddenly everything turned around. Just adding blind aggression turned me into a winner. Whenever I was going to call, I raised instead. Whenever I was going to check, I bet instead. If I was going to call when I knew he was really strong, I folded instead. Boom, I was a winner.
This blind aggression has been refined over the last few months, and what was totally without logic but was winning me money now has a basis to it that I understand fully. “It takes a better hand to call than it does to raise”! If you understand why this is, then you will understand big bet poker. The rest is easy.
Consider this hand from two nights ago:
I am playing 4d5d from late position in a NL Hold’em game. It is limped to me by 3 players. I raise to 4xBB. I get one caller. The flop is 6,7,10 rainbow and he checks. I bet almost the pot. He calls. The turn is a 3 completing my straight. He checks and I bet again, pot sized. He re-raises me but only doubles my bet. I push all-in. He calls and shows 89 to take my stack.
What a terrible example, huh? I lost.
Well, not really. I played this hand really well. He played this hand poorly. I will win a lot of money in the long run by playing my way. He will lose a lot of money by playing his way. Understand why this is and you will understand how to win in the NL Hold’em rings.
My wife asked me afterwards how I did. I said I lost money. She gave me the look and I considered defending myself. I considered explaining logically how my losing money was just like her winning a fight. Then I thought better of it. I had lost enough hands for the night.
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