Swearing Monkey-Tilt

Well, I did it. I am ashamed to say that Full Tilt caused me to hit the Swearing Monkey Tilt stage, and I have Quadman to prove it (sorry, man - you did NOT deserve to be on the other end of that chat session, even if it wasn't directed at you).

I had hit $100 of bonus cleared at Full Tilt and had already sworn that I was not going to play another hand there. As it turns out, in order to get to that point I was already down another 50 BB from where I left off in the last blog update.

But then I had an early child feeding Sunday night and (with Monday being a holiday for me) I decided to log in and see what was happening. I located one of the biggest $1/$2 fish there is (53%/0%/0.3) and grabbed a seat at his table to his immediate right. Lo and behold, Quadman is sitting to the fish's left! Small world. :-)

In the span of about 60 hands I played the following 4 monstrosities, 3 of them against the fishie:

• AT on a AJ3 flop. Fishie had J3
• 66 which made middle set on the flop. Fishie had no pair, no draw, but hit runner-runner for a str8. (This started the tilt)
• QJo, flop QJ6, turn blank, river 6. Guy flips over T6.
• 45s in the BB, 5 ways for 2 bets preflop. Flop 863r, giving me an open-ender. Turn was a 2, giving me the nuts. Me and the fishie capped the turn. River was a 3. I bet/called the raise and he flipped over 88 for the rivered boat. (This pushed me into full-blown monkey-tilt, and the aforementioned chat session with Quadman)

Luckily I logged off 1-2 button revolutions after that last hand (although one could argue I should have logged off immediately, or better yet even sooner - once I started to realize the onset of tilt). Another 30 BB down the drain in an incredibly short session.

I am not usually one of the players to shout "rigged" but I am at a loss of how "swingy" Full Tilt can be - every session seems to be either up 40-50 BB or down 50-60 BB depending on which side of the rigged-o-meter you happened to be that day. It is really hampering my ability to enjoy the game. And it also points out that I have a LONG way to go towards getting tilt out of my game.

I have signed up for Stars and made my initial deposit, so even if I decide to "get just a few hands in" I at least have another place to do it. Of course, there is no guarantee that Stars is any better (or that my perception of the game in general is any better) but will be at least a fresh start. Combine that with a few nights off to clear my head, and hopefully I'll get back on the right track.

Halloween Curse, The Aftermath

Well, how have I been doing since the Halloween Curse? The graph below tells an interesting story:


You can see the -$120 slide pretty easily - I actually slid some more a few days after that to bottom out at about -$156 in 480-ish hands.

I then spent about the next 800 hands getting it all back (and then some!), including that amazing vertical stretch in the middle of the graph where I made $61 profit in 4 consecutive hands.

Then I spent another 400 hands or so blowing off about $115.

Then I spent 150 hands making most of that back.

Sum total? 1826 hands, down exactly 5 cents over that stretch. Doesn't seem worth the stress. :-)

Interestingly enough, a lot of the upswings during that stretch were full-ring and much of the downswing was 6-max, to the extent that I am now doing better (both dollar-wise and winrate) at $1/$2 full-ring ($122, 2.34 BB/100) than I am at $1/$2 6-max ($71, 1.23 BB/100). Weird game.

Just to keep things in perspective, though, here's what it looks like when viewed in perspective of all my hands (y-axis in BB instead of $ since there is now quite a bit of difference between the lowest level I've played and the highest level I've played)


Barely even a blip.

I think I'm going to sign up for Poker Stars this weekend - everything I've heard points to the fact that the fish / TAG ratio is far better there. I also checked out bonuswhores.com tonight, and there are some sweet bonuses out there for U.S players on some Prima sites. Maybe the bonus chasing portion of my poker "career" isn't over quite yet.....