On losing, part 1

The man who taught me how to play poker asked me for a loan once because couldn't pay his rent. I knew the rules and I'd played a little before, but I say that I learned to play from him, because in his apartment, at his $0.25-$3 spread bet home game, I learned about “outs,” and “pot odds.” He would eventually start dealing in and playing in some of the local card rooms, which by his invite is how I wound up getting my start playing Hold 'Em for real money. But, despite dealing cards for a living, reading tons of books, and being pretty good mathematically, he has never been a winning player. I think the fundamental problem with his game is that he's a bit of a whiner. I used to get sob stories about why he'd lost on a particular evening until I responded harshly: “Dear XXXX, Here is my secret formula for poker success. 1. Stop whining. 2. Play better. Love, Grandpa.”

Most players, most people, feel sorry for themselves when faced with adversity. Rather than really sitting down and figuring out why they lose, they find a kind of contentment in finding excuses that allow them to make the same mistakes they've always made. Specifically excuses for allowing themselves to tilt. He wrote in his own blog once about how there's no writing about losing poker. He's an aspiring writer (I think, I don't really know), and there is a certain inherent poetry in the loser. And, yeah, when losing I'll compare myself to Dostoevsky, and work long and hard on the absurdly long novel that I can't seem to finish. But he is right about the pro card player's attitude toward losing, in reading other player's blogs, their winning sessions are often hardcore play by plays of how awesome they are, while their losing sessions are “played bad. Was on tilt. Too depressing to write about.” And I'm guilty of this too. It's about hardest thing in the world to sit down and really look at your own shortcomings.

So here goes...
The story of my January through February disaster starts sometime in September. After a losing August, I decided that if I played good every session, if I never tilted, I could make a decent living. It took me a few months to get to this point, but eventually I started to do it. And, during an incredible streak from October 30, to Jan 2 I had an 83% win rate, with a little over $21k of profit. I was playing great. I had enough money that I could gamble without fear when I knew I had the best hand. I could shrug off any cold deck. I achieved a feeling of calmness that afforded me the serenity to know that despite any bad luck, the money would come to me eventually, simply because I playing better than everyone at any table I was at. And I was amazing... in tight games I played aggressive and loose, in loose games I played patient and tight. I had near perfect reads on everyone. I found a way to profit from any table I was at. No one could set me off my game plan, and nothing could make me tilt. I achieved this from an intense discipline that I found in the rest of my life. All the guidelines I mentioned in the last post I followed pretty exactly.

So, at the beginning of Jan, I got the notion that my shit didn't stink, and I got into an insanely aggressive $10/$25 game. No cap on the buy in, very rich and very bad players throwing around thousands, by far the loosest and biggest game I've played in. And in my first three sessions, I won $3k, $5k, and a two hour $10,600 win that got me kicked out of the game. This brought my total since October 30 to a little over $40k (FORTY THOUSAND US DOLLARS).

The WPT was happening the next week. Now, with the notion that my shit smelled like roses, I went with a friend to the Borgata. We get there that night pretty tired from the trip, and so I decide to just play a few hours. Within the first hour or two, I wind up hitting a straight flush, and win about $6k. We leave soon after, go out to a strip club, drink a lot, celebrate in a general merriment. I tell a stripper giving me a lap dance to come and meet me at the casino the next day, that “I'll be easy to find. I'll be the guy at the poker table with all the money!” She found this charming, but never showed.

I went there with $16k, in three neatly rubber banded wads of 50 hundred dollar bills. At this point the safe in our room has four of these wads in it, and a couple thousand dollar chips, that I carry around and do tricks with. I'm counting out the credit cards I'm going to pay. I'm thinking about the stocks I'm going to buy. I'm deciding if I want a scooter or a real motorcycle.

The next day, I get to the table, a bit hungover, a bit tired. I play poorly, get down a few thousand but eventually get a hold of myself and fight back to a $65 tie. My friend is at the final table for a satellite to the $10k main event, and so I leave the game to watch him get through a field of 300 to come in 4^th, he wins $1k, but not a seat. We have a nice steak dinner, drink some wine. I am unstoppable! Even when I play bad, I'm still better than everyone! We are both winning! We are awesome! We are in good moods.