The 2013 Diary of a Semi-LAG Tilt Monkey

After a week away from the virtual felt at the start of the month, the tilt monkey has returned with a vengeance this week. The week so far has involved:

- ditching 6BI in the first couple of thousand hands
- playing solid, mentally stable poker to get back to even over the next few thousand hands, followed by;
- donking off 6BI in 45 minutes last night through maniac spew.

So what’s going on here and why am I at this point again?

One recurring theme seems to be that I spew off almost exactly at the point when I realise that a level is easily beatable. As soon as I start thinking along the lines of “I’ll just rattle off another month or two at xxnl @xbb/100 and move up” is the point where the death knell is sounded to my win-rate. This has happened at 5nl, 10nl, 25nl and now 50nl.

The main problem with this line of thinking is that I’m trying to push the action too hard to hit a certain win rate or target for the month as quickly as possible. No poker win rate is linear and you just cannot force the action to make that next move up in levels or a higher bb/100 come any sooner. The money will come when it comes, with only disciplined play where I respect my opponents rewarded in the short- and long-run.

I was feeling pretty demoralised and pissed off with myself last night, but it’s time to get back in the saddle to slowly grind back last night’s spew frenzy - one hour of spew and 7-8 hours of grinding back to even should be punishment enough to stop these mad spew sessions in future..

Sigh.

Originally Posted by The Bean Counter

One recurring theme seems to be that I spew off almost exactly at the point when I realise that a level is easily beatable. As soon as I start thinking along the lines of “I’ll just rattle off another month or two at xxnl @xbb/100 and move up” is the point where the death knell is sounded to my win-rate.

I have been there exactly, many times. Learning to manage yourself is just as important as learning to improve your game. An attitude you should adopt is that you do not allow yourself to make bad plays. Whenever you notice one, curse at yourself, and print in mind how you should have played. If you keep this up, and you start tilting, you will quickly see you are doing bad plays. Hopefully then you can get into your regular game again.

Originally Posted by The Bean Counter

one hour of spew and 7-8 hours of grinding back to even should be punishment enough to stop these mad spew sessions in future..

You would think heh...been there. Keep it up tho, you are progressing. Some of us need to be kicked in the beanbag multiple times before we learn.