Balance/Tilt/Recovery

What I've really been trying to focus on lately in my poker game has been balance.

I've been trying to play different games to keep my interest and focus as high as possible during my entire session. A big problem of mine is when I'm playing a game that I feel I have a pretty good grasp on (i.e. SNGs/MTTs - at least at my stakes) and I run like shit. That tilts me like mad. I feel like I'm being cheated and it pisses me off. Nothing bothers me more than playing great and having the results suck. So what I've been trying to do is mix in games that I know I haven't close to mastered. I can shrug off my own mistakes because I know that I'm learning as I progress.

I mention all this because tonight I played some limit O8 and LHE to start the night. Omaha Hi/Lo has always had a soft spot in my heart. My biggest tourney cash for a long time was a 2nd place in a $10/1 PLO8 tourney on Party for about $300. I've played the limit variety a bit in tourneys but I'm definitely a newbie in the cash games and I feel like I'm playing decently at this point. The games get pretty nuts though as you see a lot of pots capped preflop and I've been at tables where the average pot size is up to 14BBs. I played ok for a during that hour making only one major mistake where I severely misplayed a hand preflop in O8 and then I proceeded to make a bad fold later in the hand.

I was still feeling good as I got ready to transition into the tourney portion of my night. I really like playing The Ferguson. It's only $1 entry and it helps get my MTT fix for a small amount. Also, it's a non-NL game twice a week which is always fun. I proceeded to donk off about half my stack early in that and was sitting at about 950 chips when slb jinxed me and I was hit by a 6 outer to get knocked out just before the break...that wasn't really that bad though. Just a bummer. Not long after that I began the SNG portion of my night.

I ended up playing 4 SNGs and some more LHE during that time. The problem was that I wasn't in a very good LHE mindset at that point and my play had been deteoriating throughout the night. I ended up playing pretty well in my SNGs but I was just playing like a madman on my LHE tables where I was running something like a 30% VP$P...that's just so bad a full ring LHE. I usually run around 17-20%. I forced a few hands that I just shouldn't have and had one cooler hand and I was suddenly on my way to destroying a night of good play.

I don't know how it is for everyone else when they're tilting...but it actually causes a physical reaction in me. My heart rate accelerates and my body heats up. I can actually feel myself tilting. There's no avoiding that I'm on tilt and I'm not going to be playing great. I also have the incredible ability to be completely unable to get up and stop playing when I'm tilted. It's bad, but at least I was playing limit right ;)

I decided to open up another table (I'm like the smartest guy I know). I immediately lose 2 pots on that table. I'm on the edge of losing it...then suddenly I'm able to get myself to stop being such an idiot and I refocus myself. It was bizarre. I just took a few deep breaths and I played great poker after that. I picked up AA and QQ for a few good pots. I was also able to apply some knowledge learned from this article to win a couple of nice blind defense hands. I didn't end up making a full recoup of my tilt losses but I'm very proud of myself for managing to come back and play my A game after just playing absolutely abyssmally.