Kill Me Please (BUSTO BUSTO BUSTO)
Just over three weeks ago I was making $2000+ a day, every day, playing 3-400 hands at the $400 level and some $1000 shorthanded on UB. Everything was cool. I had $5000 in the bank, which is 3 months living expenses (I'm single; no real obligations).
Up until 3 months ago I had $30,000+ in personal debt. Playing poker was helping me make the payments but the balance wasn't going anywhere. April was my hugest month ever though, and I was able to cash out a minimum of $3000 a week while still increasing my bankroll. Most of that money went to paying my debt.
On Tuesday , May 16th, I talked to the final two companies I still owed and convinced them to accept a one time payment of $2500 each on approximately $8000 of debt in total. I was free and clear. My total BR online was still $20,000+ and I planned on cashing out another $4000 at the end of the week to ensure I had some padding in my bank account.
Wednesday May 19th, I decided not to play. I wasn't feeling great. I went to a movie (Scary Movie 4, sucked ass), came home, and saw a friendly female was logged into MSN. We started talking, I quickly got bored and decided to check out the games on Stars. A certain giant flounder was playing $2000 PLO so I decided to take a half-buy in shot. That quickly went south when darwinism called my flop checkraise all-in with a double gutshot and caught running two pair against my aces+ oe straight draw. Pretty quickly I dropped the $4000 I had on Stars.
99% of the time after I do something so foolish I turn off the computer and walk away, but if I get the right combination of tired and angry, sometimes I push myself. For some reason any time I've had a losing day on Party or Stars recently I've made it back and then some on UB, so still talking to this random girl over MSN, I log on to UB. I ran up $3000 in a 6max PLO game right quick and do the right thing; I quit. Then the little bastard in the back of my brain says "Nah, don't go to bed, you're just getting started" and I randomly make the decision to sit down in a $50/$100 6max PLO game with average pots of $4500. I buy in for $2500, drop it quick on a straight/flush draw, then rebuy. Double up, win a couple small pots, and suddenly I have $8500.
I call a raise from the UTG player on the button with AcQcJ8. Both blinds fold. The flop comes out Tc 9c 7d and UTG pots it. I repot with the nuts plus a bunch of nut redraws. He smoothcalls. I'm praying the board doesn't pair, but against this particular player I don't think I can fold if it does.
The turn is the 8h. He sets me all in. I, of course, call. The river is a 7, hearts I think, and he shows 6788, no clubs, to take down the $17K pot.
I, of course, percieved this as a great injustice. I quickly spewed off the last $3000 I had on UB and closed the site. Now at this point, I could have gone to bed a $11K loser and still had enough of a BR to multitable the $200 games on Party. At 40 hours a week playing 6 tables, I'd generally expect to make anywhere from $5000-$10,000, easily enough to rebuild so I could get back to the $400 Level.
Did I do this? Of fucking course not. I had about $9000 on party. I sat down at a $2000 table with an uberlag and proceeded to lose with every draw and made hand. When I get this way I don't really start playing badly, I just start playing much more aggro in very thin situations, raising a hand I know to be 40% to win on the flop when I also know I have no fold equity. When I start hitting these croocked coinflips I'll stack the whole motherfucking table. When I don't I spew like mad.
After dropping $4k, I, for some reason, started playing $200 a hand party blackjack. I don't like blackjack. I don't like table games at all really, and I certainly don't like playing them online unless it's for bonus whoring.
I quickly won $1500 playing BJ while the $2000 table I was still at tightened up considerably and most pots were won on the flop. PLO becomes a very tedious game when the pots are generally small and you have a few calling stations. The action wasn't big enough for me, so I soon focused back on BJ.
Within an hour I'd busted all of the money in my account except what was on the PLO table, and ten minutes after that, that $2000 went too.
At about 7:00 am, I found myself almost completely broke, with my only saving grace that UB takes so goddamn long on their cashouts that I still had $2000 pending.
I woke up at 5:00 pm the following day and deposited what I had on Party. I was so angry at myself for what I'd done the night before that rather than sit down and grind as many $50, $100 and $200 PLO tables as I could play, I started playing BJ again. Something in me had snapped.
Within an hour, I'd run that $2000 up into $7500. I was determined to hit $10K. Of course that never happened or I wouldn't be telling this story. A few hours later, I'd gone completely bust.
I'm sure there are a lot of haters out there that are going to be overjoyed to read this, and I know I've disappointed quite a few people in my life. All I can do from this point on is move on one step at a time.
I am not done playing poker. I fucking love poker like nothing else. I'm gonna take one last shot on stars when I get my rakeback payment and hopefully I'll be able to run it up quick. If not, nothing really lost. Now to find a job...
Up until 3 months ago I had $30,000+ in personal debt. Playing poker was helping me make the payments but the balance wasn't going anywhere. April was my hugest month ever though, and I was able to cash out a minimum of $3000 a week while still increasing my bankroll. Most of that money went to paying my debt.
On Tuesday , May 16th, I talked to the final two companies I still owed and convinced them to accept a one time payment of $2500 each on approximately $8000 of debt in total. I was free and clear. My total BR online was still $20,000+ and I planned on cashing out another $4000 at the end of the week to ensure I had some padding in my bank account.
Wednesday May 19th, I decided not to play. I wasn't feeling great. I went to a movie (Scary Movie 4, sucked ass), came home, and saw a friendly female was logged into MSN. We started talking, I quickly got bored and decided to check out the games on Stars. A certain giant flounder was playing $2000 PLO so I decided to take a half-buy in shot. That quickly went south when darwinism called my flop checkraise all-in with a double gutshot and caught running two pair against my aces+ oe straight draw. Pretty quickly I dropped the $4000 I had on Stars.
99% of the time after I do something so foolish I turn off the computer and walk away, but if I get the right combination of tired and angry, sometimes I push myself. For some reason any time I've had a losing day on Party or Stars recently I've made it back and then some on UB, so still talking to this random girl over MSN, I log on to UB. I ran up $3000 in a 6max PLO game right quick and do the right thing; I quit. Then the little bastard in the back of my brain says "Nah, don't go to bed, you're just getting started" and I randomly make the decision to sit down in a $50/$100 6max PLO game with average pots of $4500. I buy in for $2500, drop it quick on a straight/flush draw, then rebuy. Double up, win a couple small pots, and suddenly I have $8500.
I call a raise from the UTG player on the button with AcQcJ8. Both blinds fold. The flop comes out Tc 9c 7d and UTG pots it. I repot with the nuts plus a bunch of nut redraws. He smoothcalls. I'm praying the board doesn't pair, but against this particular player I don't think I can fold if it does.
The turn is the 8h. He sets me all in. I, of course, call. The river is a 7, hearts I think, and he shows 6788, no clubs, to take down the $17K pot.
I, of course, percieved this as a great injustice. I quickly spewed off the last $3000 I had on UB and closed the site. Now at this point, I could have gone to bed a $11K loser and still had enough of a BR to multitable the $200 games on Party. At 40 hours a week playing 6 tables, I'd generally expect to make anywhere from $5000-$10,000, easily enough to rebuild so I could get back to the $400 Level.
Did I do this? Of fucking course not. I had about $9000 on party. I sat down at a $2000 table with an uberlag and proceeded to lose with every draw and made hand. When I get this way I don't really start playing badly, I just start playing much more aggro in very thin situations, raising a hand I know to be 40% to win on the flop when I also know I have no fold equity. When I start hitting these croocked coinflips I'll stack the whole motherfucking table. When I don't I spew like mad.
After dropping $4k, I, for some reason, started playing $200 a hand party blackjack. I don't like blackjack. I don't like table games at all really, and I certainly don't like playing them online unless it's for bonus whoring.
I quickly won $1500 playing BJ while the $2000 table I was still at tightened up considerably and most pots were won on the flop. PLO becomes a very tedious game when the pots are generally small and you have a few calling stations. The action wasn't big enough for me, so I soon focused back on BJ.
Within an hour I'd busted all of the money in my account except what was on the PLO table, and ten minutes after that, that $2000 went too.
At about 7:00 am, I found myself almost completely broke, with my only saving grace that UB takes so goddamn long on their cashouts that I still had $2000 pending.
I woke up at 5:00 pm the following day and deposited what I had on Party. I was so angry at myself for what I'd done the night before that rather than sit down and grind as many $50, $100 and $200 PLO tables as I could play, I started playing BJ again. Something in me had snapped.
Within an hour, I'd run that $2000 up into $7500. I was determined to hit $10K. Of course that never happened or I wouldn't be telling this story. A few hours later, I'd gone completely bust.
I'm sure there are a lot of haters out there that are going to be overjoyed to read this, and I know I've disappointed quite a few people in my life. All I can do from this point on is move on one step at a time.
I am not done playing poker. I fucking love poker like nothing else. I'm gonna take one last shot on stars when I get my rakeback payment and hopefully I'll be able to run it up quick. If not, nothing really lost. Now to find a job...
6 Comments:
Rempel,
I enjoy reading your blog & especially liked reading about how your shot-taking was paying off recently, because I think too many potentially-strong players play lower than they could simply because they're pussies.
So I'm bummed to hear that you suffered this run of bad luck.
But, if you do some simple math, I think you can show yourself how something like this is inevitable if you're playing so high above your BR, *without a stop-loss in place*. The only way shot-taking is insured against a catastrophe is if you have a rock-solid quitting point where you absolutely force yourself to move down in stakes if you've lost X amount. And you'll hit that stop-loss with what feels like relatively high frequency. But it's essential.
Anyway, I hope you get back in business with that last $2k from UB and the rakeback. Look at the bright side--no longer in debt, and doing what you enjoy. Could be a lot worse, no?
WM
I absolutely agree with you on using a stop loss when taking a shot, though I think they are foolish if you are playing within your bankroll unless you're just plain playing bad.
Typically a standard shot would come about after having a particularly good day and winning $2500 or $3000 at the $400 games. I'd take $1000 of that and see if I could
run it up in a 'big game'. I'd generally quit when I ran that $1000 up to $2500 or more or when I lost it. No problem.
The big problems come when I'm tired.
Retarded beats have a tendancy to push me to a breaking point and I have difficulty controlling my emotions. Usually I'd just walk away from the computer and chill for a the night but sometimes I just plain old lose control.
The last $2K from UB was gone the day after my big blow up, as is another $2K or so raised from stuff I've sold.
Thanks for the advice.
Rempel,
I absolutely know what you're talking about. Many times I have gotten stuck several thousand late at night and kept plugging away, trying to get even. Occasionally, I have even fallen asleep (microsleep or whatever it's called) during a hand, then woken up and frantically tried to figure out what action to take before my turn timed out. Inevitably, those nights turn into out-and-out disasters for me too, but I haven't really learned.
It's just tough to institute self-control at the point where your mind is weak from anxiety of losing money coupled with exhaustion of being up for so long.
Anyway, I think you've got a pretty good poker "business plan", as long as you can make a strong effort to keep these occasional late-night-tired-sessions to a minimum and hopefully limit your access to $'s as a forced means of stop-loss for shot-taking.
WM
If I never played tired I'd probably be at least $50K richer.
As it is, I made my bed and I gotta fucking lie in it. I (was) the only person in my social and familial group with any kind of money so I gotta go sling shit at a job somewhere for a few months until I can save up a bankroll, assuming this rakeback shot doesn't pan out.
Again, thanks for the advice. It helps a great deal to know I'm not the only person to go through this kind of crap.
The only thing I can say to that is "HUH?"
But thank you for posting oblique and worthless comments to my blog.
50/100 plo is so damn scary. can't believe you were playin that though...couple high stakes guys on 2p2 said they wouldn't be comfy with 1mil playing that game...
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