Back To The Trap House

What happens when you come across a giant fish and start tilting? Do you have the emotional control to stop the tilt and play your A game or get up and walk away? Well I had neither and decided the best way to cure my tilt was to spew to a giant monkey fish.

I had started a table and two sat to my immediate left. They were both very 3betty but the person to my immediate left was doing it even more. Every time I opened he would 3 bet for a stretch of hands. Well, I decided to push back one play. In hind sight I played the hand wrong but it mos def worked out in my favor.

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold’em – 9 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP1: $100.00
MP2: $70.10
Hero (CO): $105.05
BTN: $38.80
SB: $78.00
BB: $121.35
UTG: $128.00
UTG+1: $98.50
UTG+2: $92.85

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is CO with 9 T
5 folds, Hero raises to $2, 1 fold, SB raises to $11, 1 fold, Hero raises to $105.05 all in, SB calls $67 all in

Flop: ($157.00) 7 4 6 (2 players – 2 are all in)

Turn: ($157.00) Q (2 players – 2 are all in)

River: ($157.00) 9 (2 players – 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $157.00
Hero shows 9 T (a pair of Nines)
SB shows 3 2 (high card Queen)
Hero wins $154.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Well, flatting pre flop is definitely the play here. I shouldn’t lose sight of that even though I did win the hand. He was 3 betting with a wide range so if I flatted I was ahead of a lot of his range and not in that bad of shape against the rest. Yes, he could show up with a big hand here every once and a while but I felt like he was in the mindset of flatting with his bigger hands.

This hand ended up making him a ton of money. After seeing this hand everyone at the table had a nice little laugh about it. I subconsciously dumbed down my play against him. I decided, subconsciously, that I didn’t need to range him because he was an idiot fish. This was the root of my entire tilt session. He did something good. He self corrected his play. whether it was consciously or subconsciously I can’t be too sure but if he truly was a fish then he didn’t actively do it. The embarrassment factor from the other players laughing at him forced him to do this.

Dumbing down my play led to this next hand in which I challenged him to a heads up match afterwards.

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold’em – 7 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $100.00
SB: $67.05
Hero (BB): $204.00
UTG: $37.95
UTG+1: $169.90
MP: $128.65
CO: $103.85

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with A J
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $3, 1 fold, CO calls $3, 1 fold, SB calls $2.50, Hero raises to $16, UTG+1 calls $13, 2 folds

Flop: ($38.00) T J 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $25, UTG+1 calls $25

Turn: ($88.00) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $163 all in, UTG+1 calls $128.90 all in

River: ($345.80) 5 (2 players – 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $345.80
Hero shows A J (a pair of Jacks)
UTG+1 shows 9 J (two pair, Jacks and Nines)
UTG+1 wins $342.80
(Rake: $3.00)

I just shut my brain down and thought it would be ok to shove on a 4 straight board? Thats so awful. In my head he was a dumb ass fish though so why range him? I spoke with my coach yesterday about the session and he told me a few indicators of when I should get up and walk away to prevent future tilt…..

1. Once I start labeling people as idiots or bad players and stop actively ranging them I should walk away.
2. Once the money starts to mean something to me I should stop playing. Although I am backed and am not at the stakes where I am actually cashing out the money did mean something to me at the time. It would be embarrassing for me to show my coach and my friends these hands. Combined with the fact that I didn’t want to tell my coach who I had spent months working on my game with that I lost 7 buy ins alone to a giant fish. That stuff shouldn’t matter one bit though.

For the sake of not repeating anything that you have heard and Tommy Angelo has already spoke about I will leave it at that.

The most important thing is how I look at the table from now on. I am no longer AshThePro playing a poker game. I am a Deity looking upon the game. I need to remove myself from the situation and make objective decisions.

He also explained that part of the method to moving me up and down in stakes is the emotional control. I started at 25NL went to 50NL and am now at 100NL. This is an increase in money that I may not be used to losing whether it is mine or not. The only way I can gain this emotional control is to actually put in the time at these stakes. I have to be emotionally stable and crushing before I move one.

Also, something else that is very juicy is that as poker players we seem to obsess over moving up in levels. This is how most of us define each other. What stakes are you at? 3/6? Oh you must be better than I am then. This is incorrect thinking. We are poker players simply adjusting to the situation. Think about the higher stake guys. Its not like the nose bleeds run all the time. A lot of them take a shot at a 25/50 game for example but then go back and grind at their regular stakes of 5/10 or 3/6.