Inspiring Commentary For Anyone Doubting Their Game or Losing Control

I recently wrote to a friend I confide in very much basically describing to him a general lack of control I have been experiencing in my poker game lately. For some reason, I had been coming across problems I had never really battled before: consistent tilting after bad beats, taking shots at 50/100 when I am only rolled to play 10/20, playing Layne Flack heads-up 10/20 NL at Full Tilt (this was very close to rock bottom).

I was really confused. For two years, I had always had fairly solid mental control over my game. I understood proper bankroll management and variance that was inherent in poker. Further, I understood that these "bad beats" that were now tilting me were the very reason I was able to profit over the past 2-3 years. Not only were they a natural part of the game, but they were in fact a requirement in order to have and maintain an edge.

I wrote an e-mail to this friend, describing my situation, asking him if he could potentially "coach" me and offer some advice to get my game back on track. Here is what he wrote in return:

Hey Rob,

(note: This is a very long reply, but it has good stuff in it)

I would be happy to be a coaching figure for you. I'm actually honored that you would ask me for help. More than anything, I would do this as a friend rather than as a poker player, if that makes sense. I think based on my past poker playing experience I can help you work through the management of certain issues, especially pertaining to steaming and playing too emotionally. I've been there with poker and horse racing and it's like a demon you can't control. It took all my will power to drop gambling because it was trying to overcome that demon that grabs hold and essentially erases your value of money.

Because I've been out of the game for so long, and to be honest, I haven't felt inclined to play again, I might not be able to add great technical poker insight. But that doesn't seem to be what you're asking. And since I probably won't play again for awhile, I doubt I'll be able to contribute much in that way down the road. But, I still remember the fundamentals of my game and how to win in poker, and in that way I can be helpful.

However, what I think I can help with is assisting you in the management of your poker game - steam control, playing tighter, money management, choosing the right limits, etc. In other words, your overall approach to poker. Rob, I think what I've seen recently is that you have overextended yourself due to your rapid ascent in limits and great success. However, it's easy at 50/100 limit to lose so much of that hard-earned money. The most difficult part as a poker player is recognizing that choosing the right limits is half the battle. I could never do that, and that's why I ultimately failed. I quickly beat the 5/10 kill game at Foxwoods even though I was playing 2/4 the day before; I became convinced of my success without understanding that poker is about swings. It was too hard to drop down in class; fortunately, you have accepted the importance of moving down in limits.

You have had outstanding success and it's been fabulous to watch, but you're at a point now where you have outpaced even yourself (if that makes sense). It's really dangerous and an incorrect strategy to move up in limits to win your money back [after a losing session]. That is something you really can't do any more. We are both very emotional gamblers and that really can be one's downfall. It's great you have recognized it, but now you must stay true to that.

There are a few things I think, as a coach, you should focus on:

1) Don't set a limit or target on how much money you want to make (saying you want to be up to 15k, for example). That only causes you, consciously or subconsciously, to make incorrect decisions. If you're it in for the long haul, you should be thinking years out from now, not weeks or months. The money will come to you, but you need to be patient. It's only dangerous to push the envelope.

2) You should focus on tightening up more for the sake of regrouping. I noticed last night that you check-raised a lot on a bluff hoping a guy would lay the hand down [while playing 50/100]. I often got sucked into bluffing in limit online - it rarely works - especially when it only takes 1 more bet to call. Those shorthanded games naturally draw looser players, so you need to tighten up to combat that. It's much tougher to outplay people online, and I get the impression that you have been relying too much on doing this. I think that it's an extension of trying to make a lot of money in a short period of time.

3) Don't feel forced to play at any time. Poker is supposed to be fun. It cannot be all about the money or then it becomes too tedious. If you're not in the right state of mind, just don't play that day.

4) Related to the last point, pick up other hobbies outside of poker. Get back into watching movies. Or find some great books to read. Once you have other options outside poker, you won't feel pressured to always play, especially when you're tired or frustrated after work. This will allow you not to feel obliged to play when you're not in the right mindset. It will also help you be refreshed when you return to the table. To get my mind off gambling, I started reading again, watching movies, investing in the stock market, reading the newspaper every day. Stuff like that. You are a bright, witty, well-rounded person with a great education, and it would be a shame if you allowed poker to consume your other hobbies, interests, and passions in life.

5) The steam control factor is huge. You start pressing the issue and have difficulty stopping. It's very tough to just quit after losing. But you have to set a limit and stick with it. I know you're strong enough to do that. The Professor says 60 BB. At this stage, it might be better if you set it at 45 BB. Some days you'll win and others you'll lose. If you're losing, I know it's tough, but force your hand to close the window and then walk over and pour yourself a Johnnie Walker and watch a movie. There's always tomorrow.

6) If you are getting too emotional or steaming when you are playing, you need a check on those emotions. So here's what you can do: Call me to remind you to quit. I don't care what time is it. I stay up late anyway. But I would sleep well, in fact, knowing that you shut it down for the night and remained composed. Just call me and say what's up, we'll chat for a bit, and then you'll have your mind off poker.

Well this is rather long, but I've been there, and as a friend I want to see you succeed in poker, but more than that, in all your life's ventures. We have become too caught up sometimes in certain things that obscure the larger view, to keep things in perspective, and to remember where we want to be and what we want to achieve throughout life. That's why I write in a journal. It keeps me sane and focused on my goals in life.

Outside poker, you seem to be dealing with some stress. It's certainly tough for you to be traveling so much and to be away from your girlfriend and your friends. Maybe your work isn't exactly everything you expected or are looking for at this stage in your life. But I can say rather confidently that poker, while I know you're very good at it, is not the answer. You will do well in poker because you have the talent and drive and that's something that you should capitalize on. But you may want to consider taking on other hobbies too, whether it be writing, getting back to film, taking up an instrument, exercising, playing sports again. It has to be tough with your long hours, I understand that, and the few off days you have you probably want to fit in as much as you can. But rather than play poker when you get off work, try working out to clear your mind. Or consider what other careers you might tackle down the road if you don't envision yourself remaining in your line of woek for many more years.

Take care man,

Ryan

[sexdrugsmoney]

First of all, thankyou for sharing this.

Not only is the advice very good, but it sounds like you have a real friend there. I'm sure you know this but true friends are rare, kudos.

Secondly, if you wouldn't mind relating a bit more about your poker career it would be appreciated.

Your friend believes you have the talent for poker so it would be nice to hear how you got started and built your roll before your troubles with tilt and taking a shot at the higher limits.

Also your friend mentioned you travel for work, I assume this isn't work as in a "poker circuit" but traditional work, if you don't mind sharing, what do you do?

Thanks for this thread.

sdm

[tminus]

Thanks for posting this Kramer. It was a very thoughtful and level headed response.

Although I dont play at the higher limits that you do, I can relate to the topic of emotional gambling. It's not a coincidence that I reload after a big fight with my girlfriend. I play for many reasons, but in these instances I do it as a way to escape stress and grief. I play well in the begining and then burn through it on tilt. Not a huge deal, $50 every once in a while...but certainly the biggest flaw in my game.

Im currently looking for healthier ways to handle those emotions.

sdm -

I'm about to travel once again (leaving for the airport in about 15 minutes), but once I get settled in my hotel tonight, I will put together a follow-up explaining how I got to the point I am at and some other background info.

Thanks for reading.

[4thstreetpete]

very nice post! thank you.

would like to hear some more background info please. Sounds like a very interesting story.

[flair1239]

What a great friend to have.

Apologies in advance for the length. Somehow explaining my situation turned into a truncated version of my memoirs. As is the case with many aspects of me… when it rains, it pours.

I am 22 years old, only 7 months or so out of Brown University where I attended undergrad. I majored in Applied Mathematics Economics where most of my classes focused on seemingly inapplicable economic theory (of which the most interesting topic was game theory) and (more intriguing to me) lots of statistics and a few other areas of math (number theory, linear algebra, multivariable calc… the whole shebang).

The Beginning – The Home Game – 2000

I got into poker fairly early in my life. Started playing in a weekly home game in high school where we’d play, what were in retrospect, pretty idiotic games (Queens Follow the Queen, Chicago, Stud-Hi Lo Roll Your Own on Every Card with a Declare) and a few of the normal ones too. I can’t really say whether or not I had an edge at the time, but I can confidently say that I was one of the few who would look to improve his game. While my friends were content making the same mistakes over and over (it was, after all, a $20 buy-in home game), I was more interested in exploring – making some dumb plays, figuring out why they were dumb, and adjusting. It wasn’t leaps and bounds by any means, but it was perhaps the start of a pursuit.

First Casino Experiences – 2001

As high school was wrapping up, a few friends and I decided to be adventurous and make the 6 hour road trip up towards Ithaca to stop at this 18-and-over casino we had heard about (Turning Stone). Up to this point, I had only read a single poker book, regretfully a Ken Warren title for beginner’s Texas Hold’em. Armed with only this “knowledge” and about 250 dollars, I decided I was going to swoop in and tear up the 2/4 game. Perhaps the cards fell right, or perhaps it was Ken Warren’s advice to play super-tight in early position, and loosen up a little towards the button, but I managed to nearly double my money in about 3 hours of work (this was an astronomical return at the time). Needless to say, my interest was piqued.

Fast-forward to college. I’m nestled in the northeast corner of the country in good ol’ Providence, Rhode Island. What’s this I hear? There’s an Indian reservation casino that is only an hour bus ride away in Connecticut? Well, it’s a good thing I got a fake ID last time I was visiting my girlfriend at NYU. Let’s face it, using the ID to sneak into bars wasn’t exactly getting any return on my $30 investment. So, lo-and-behold, I made my way over there with a friend one fateful September evening. Now mind you, this was still pre-Moneymaker Poker Boom, so sneaking in with what was an embarrassingly awful fake was not the same challenge that it probably is today. (In fact, interestingly, of the 15 or so times I went to Foxwoods underage, I was only ID’ed the very first time). Again, with my poker bankroll of about $400 (not that I knew what “bankroll” meant at the time), I seemed to find my soft-seat at the 2/4 game again. I did this sporadically for another two years in conjunction with a new home game back at school. Between the two, I was doing quite well, but still had no longterm plan for my poker game (i.e., I would typically spend the money as I earned it instead of building my bankroll). But that was fine with me. I was, after all, in this just for fun, right?

First Real Poker Book and Good Ol’ Chris Moneymaker

After watching the 2002 Varkonyi Final Table for the thousandth time, I decided it was time to buy another poker book. After deciding that Poker For Dummies was the best choice (I know, I know… I should be shot), I dug right in, looking to learn what poker was really about. In a fortuitous twist of fate, I ended up swapping books with a friend who had already read his book and wanted to see if mine was any good. I agreed without even asking which book he owned. I handed him “Poker for Dummies” and he handed me, in return, “The Theory of Poker.” Needless to say, to this day, I have still not returned the book.

After the 2003 World Series of Poker, I, like the rest of the world, decided to give online poker a shot. I deposited about $200 in the first poker site I could find (which turned out to be Pacific Poker), half expecting the money to be lost during the transfer. I played some 2/4 limit, as that was the closest thing to being “my game” at the time. I even tried my hand at some of the single table and two-table sit-n-gos where I experienced some decent success. I built my Pacific account up to around $500 rather quickly and decided I was ready for the “big game.” So here was the plan, I would take my $500, sit at the 5/10 limit game (which felt like the Bobby’s Room to me at the time), and every time I reached $600 or more, I would stop for the night, and cash out the amount of $500 that I had won. Somehow, by employing this asinine plan, I managed to make a cool $1200 dollars that summer before finally running directly into the brick wall that is variance. All told, it was a good summer for me, and I was proud of my success. Since I had spent the $1200 dollars and didn’t have a real job (it was the summer before senior year, and I had managed to convince my parents that a summer internship was a waste of time), there was nothing to do but to take a break from the game. But at least I had left on top.

First Trip To Vegas

For my 21st birthday, my girlfriend (same girlfriend from junior year of high school) decided that a trip to Vegas was in line. I didn’t put up much of a fight, even if I was terrified of flying. We didn’t know it at the time, but we would be there on one of the final days of the 2004 WSOP.

So we land at McCarran and take a cab to the strip. We had a whole trip itinerary planned, down to the minute, including the Bellagio buffet, the Rum Jungle (a nightclub) at Mandalay Bay, and a visit to the Horshoe to watch some live WSOP action (and there’s proof that we did – you can spot me and my girlfriend in the audience during a few hands when Harrington, Jesus Ferguson, and Mattias Anderson are at the same table with around 55 players left). The minute I step out of the cab, I am overwhelmed with awe. I made a decision right there that I never wanted Vegas to lose this same allure that it had at this moment. What this meant to me was, no matter where poker took me, I never wanted Vegas to just become “the office.” I always wanted it to be this exotic place that would make my adrenaline rush every time I visited. Realistic? Perhaps not. But I think it’s important to occasionally remind myself of this feeling I had so that I don’t lose sight of what Vegas meant to me at the time.

We arrived at Flamingo after the 30 minute cab ride. I could barely stand in line as I could hear the faint sound of chips being shuffled from the Flamingo poker room (which was, at the time, just 6 tables sandwiched between a cluster of slot machines. Not sure what it looks like these days.)

Within twenty minutes, I was seated with $200 of my designated $400 of poker money at the 4/8 game (which I was now comfortably playing after a few winning sessions at Foxwoods). After a three hours of play, a cool $300 of profit, and two free Coronas during my last round of play later, I was feeling pretty good, and ready to spend a night on the town with the girlfriend (who incidentally did well for herself as well at the 2/4 game. Yes, that's right, Michael Mizrachi, Chip Jett, and myself may be the only men alive who have found women who not only tolerate their poker playing, but join in the fun themselves).

As is typical with me, I’m always looking for that next level of competition, and I’m always looking for it sooner rather than later. So this naturally leads me to the Bellagio poker room, which as lore has it, is the Mount Olympus of poker rooms. Granted I wasn’t looking to buy into the 4K/8K game that was going on in the roped off, elevated room, but even taking a shot at the 4/8 game (the lowest game they spread) caused the hair on my arms to stand up. It turned out that it wasn’t my night to make a name for myself at the Bellagio, as I lost my entire $400 buy-in in just under an hour and a half. To be quite frank, I felt outmatched the entire time and I'm sure my play reflected that. I’m glad I didn’t hang my head too low during my exit though, otherwise I might have missed Howard Lederer walking back to the Big Game (who affectionately signed a $5 bill for me “Flop ‘em dead, Howard Lederer,” even while Andy Bloch needled me about not having a $100 bill for him to sign).

So I sustained a small loss during my first Vegas trip. It wasn’t the end of the world. In fact, it only whet my appetite for my poker knowledge and a higher level of competition. And so began the final phase of my so-far-short poker career…

The “Student” – A Quest to Master the Game – 2004 - ???

A few new terms entered my vocabulary during this phase.

Bankroll. Unfortunately, I had to learn this one the hard way, to the tune of a not-entirely-sober shot at 10/20 limit on Pacific while I had only $800 in my poker account. Let me just say, the spectrum of emotions one can experience while playing out of one’s bankroll is really quite fascinating. Within 20 minutes, I was on top of the world, passing the $1,000 mark for the first time in my life. I drove that amount all the way up to $1,400 before having the proverbial chair pulled out from beneath me. My roll plummeted like Disney’s stock after introducing Euro Disney, mostly due to post-bad-beat tilting and recklessly aggressive play. Somewhere, when my chip stack passed the $800 mark (again, though this time headed in the wrong direction) I remember telling myself I should stop. But I couldn’t, and more importantly, I didn’t. To add insult to injury, after busting my full online poker bankroll, I IntaCashed another $300 from my weekly spending money, which was gone before I could even count how many big bets I had in my stack.

Multi-tabling. This one naturally led me to transfer my funds out of Pacific and into Party. Though only playing again after a two month hiatus (after the rock bottom night of 10/20), I was willing to start at the bottom. So I started, frustratingly, to build a roll again at .50/1 and 1/2.

Sit-n-Gos. OK, maybe this one wasn’t entirely foreign to me, but hearing stories of some kid at my school who made about $150 an hour 4-tabling $100 SnGs on Party excited me just a bit. Turns out I knew the kid from playing in some home games at Brown (which had now escalated to $20-50 buy-in NL games), so I immediately started picking his brain. He gave me some general instructions about beating the SnGs (most notably, to start posting on a site called 2+2), and I guess somewhat took me under his wing as much as he could without giving me a dime. I started at the 5+1 SnGs with $140 in my poker account. I worked that up to around $200 in about a week at which point my friend (2+2er, elektrik) informed me that, although slightly under-rolled, I should get into the 10+1s as soon as possible. So I played about 250 or so of the 10+1s and worked my roll up to about $600. On to the 20+2s. Played just under a thousand of those and got my roll up near $2K. I was finally doing this the right way, and it felt good. I had visions of playing at the same level as my friend (who, at this point, was slaughtering the 200+15s for around $250/hr).

Short digression: You might find it amusing that I helped start a poker class at Brown during my second semester of my senior year called “Mathematical Modeling and Analysis of Poker.” The course was an upper-level applied math class that explored such things as game theory, Baye’s Theorem, and other applications of math in poker. You all would have loved it. Our text books were none other than SuperSystem, The Theory of Poker, Sklansky on Poker, Hi-Lo Split by Ray Zee, and Seven Card Stud for Advanced Players, to name a few. About 50% of our grade was determined by our performance in a weekly rotating game of Limit Hold’em, NL Hold’em, Stud, Stud Hi-Lo, Razz, Omaha-Hi Lo, etc.

Ultimately, and I suppose inevitably, I graduated school, and got a job for a well-known management consulting firm in NY. This meant cashing out about $1500 and taking a break from the game, at least for a short while, until I could figure where poker would fit in my new life (I would be on the road for 4-5 days a week working 60-70 hour weeks). As you might have guessed, the hiatus didn’t last all that long. After all, I still had about $143 of unspent money in my Party account, might as well put it to use.

And put it to use I did. In what may be the hottest run that I will ever experience in my poker career (ROI-speaking), I turned my $143 into just over $30,000 in about 7 months. Let me try to retrace my steps of how this happened (this will require a bit of rummaging through my poker log).

July, 05
I win 1st place a $10 MTT on Empire, taking down a first prize of around $700.
I place 4th place in a $20 MTT on Empire, taking home just under $700.

September, ‘05
I win 1st place in a 220-person $162 MTT satellite on Party to lock up a seat on this year’s PPM V Cruise.

December, ‘05
I win 1st place in a $50 MTT on Party for $5,200.
I win 1st place in a $30 PL Omaha Hi-Lo Rebuy & Add-on MTT on Party for $3,700

January, ‘06
I win 1st place in a 500 person $100 MTT on Party for $12,400.

Throughout this tournament run, I was also playing and beating the 6max games, moving up from 2/4 to 10/20 as my bankroll would allow. I played about 10K hands at 10/20 6max during this stretch for a 2.3 BB/100 (a relatively insignificant amount of hands, but I was satisfied with the results no less).

So I was at or near $30K. I decided to put aside $10K for future purposes (let’s face it, I’ve been dating my girlfriend for 6 years since high school... I’m going to have to buy her a certain something eventually). This left me with 20K and a potentially dangerous confidence level, a confidence that would ultimately lead me to playing a few ill-advised sessions of 5/10 NL (and playing them quite poorly, if I may say so myself). All told, I got lucky one session for about $4K and LAGed off about $6K in another session. It was hard to believe, but just a year ago, a $500 downswing would mean I was broke. Now $3K downswings were becoming the norm. So, no more 5/10 NL.

But wait, maybe it was the game choice, not the limits that did me in there. So this lead me to give a shot at 30/60 limit. Not too many hands and a big fat -$4K later, I realized that was a bad idea as well.

So back to my 10/20 game that I knew and loved. Started winning again, just like old times. Probably won about $1,500 back when I decided it was time to take a new shot. This one in the form of playing shorthanded 10/20 NL on Full Tilt against Rafe Furst. I bought in for $1K and managed to quickly turn that into about $4,200 in just under an hour. Yeah, sure, it made a good story that Rafe eventually left after losing about $2,500 to me fairly quickly, but what was I really doing here? Unfortunately, before I could answer that question, I found myself playing 3-handed (and eventually heads-up) 10/20 NL the next night against arguably one of the best NL players in the world… Layne Flack. I was up another $1K after about 15 minutes, but got way too aggressive on some hands and ultimately busted my entire stack (net of -$1K, I guess) to good ol’ Layne Flack. Yeah, suddenly that story doesn’t seem so worth it anymore.

Fast-forward to the following week, and what would be (and hopefully will be forever) the last leg of my control-loss. For some reason I can’t explain, I decided that it was time to take a shot at the second biggest limit game that Party spreads… 50/100. What’s more, I thought it was also good to be playing 30/60 on the side at the same time, as if the task wasn’t daunting enough. Without posting any HHs, I started off playing well and was up a quick $2K. But what comes up, must come down (and tilt somewhere in between, I suppose). Long story short, I busted the $5K that I bought in for (but was at least wise enough to close Party Poker before I busted my stack at the 30/60 game also, where I ended up breaking even).

So that brings me to the present, where I am attempting a complete overhaul of how I approach the game. I’m trying to develop a plan for my poker career (and plans for the year as well, on a more short term view). I’m in this for the long haul. I have no intention of stopping before I am a world-class player. That’s the ultimate goal. And at the very least, I want to be able to say that I truly gave it a legitimate 100% shot. If it’s not meant to be, then it’s not meant to be, but for now on, I am going to focus on the things in poker that I do have control of… and [censored], there’s a lot.

Time to get started…

[sexdrugsmoney]

Wow, great story, great success.

I never knew SNG's were the way to big money, I always thought all tourneys were -EV.

Hope everything goes well for you.

BTW, when you were seriously under-rolled for the limits you played, did you pass up many 'dubious' holdings like AJ and some pocket pairs when not in position?

Regards,
sdm

No more responses? Perhaps not as inspiring as I thought. Oh well.

[skunkworks]

I loved your story. Thanks for sharing it. (no sarcasm)