Winning @ Low Stakes Poker

Last night I found a new level of tilt. It was the first time I’ve tilted in quite a while. I have been working diligently to control my tilt factor at the table. Over the past few months I’ve been able to avoid letting a lucky river card for my opponent cause me to spew chips.

Here’s the set up. I was playing at a casino that has a $60 buy-in tournament. If you go broke in the first hour, you can buy back in as a new player. Often times they will let you have your same seat back. Though, I don’t know if they are doing you any favors there. Because of the rebuy rule, it’s not uncommon to see short stacked players play crazy for the last 10 minutes before the break period in order to double-up or rebuy back to a full stack.

On the first hand of the tournament I had A/A against K/K and won a big pot. 10 minutes later I had K/K on the button and won another big pot against a guy who hit a Jack on a Jack high flop. Things were going along great. I was by far the chip leader at my table. A short time later I limped in with K/J. The flop came A/Q/T, with 2 diamonds. I made a healthy raise on the flop and got called. The turn was a diamond. It got checked to me and I made a bet. This is where things started to fall apart. I had put the guy on 2 pair. A/10 or Q/10, something like that. Or, perhaps we even had the same hand. But since I had the J of diamonds, I felt I had a nice re-draw with the second nut flush draw if a 4th diamond were to hit. The guy check raised the flop and at that point there was too much money in the pot and I felt like I still had outs, even if I was behind to a couple of diamonds. Instead, the guy turned over K/6 of diamonds for the nuts. I was drawing dead.

The combination of losing a large portion of my stack, plus being completely wrong about where I was at in the hand sent my reeling. Here is where I made my biggest mistake; rather than sitting out a few hands to cool off, I dove right back in 2 hands later by calling a raise with K/Q suited. I missed the flop and folded to a bit. The very next hand I called a raise with 6/6. I failed to improve and folded to a bet on a flop with an ace and 2 face cards. A few hands later I called a raise with 10/J suited. Missed the flop and folded to an all-in bet. By this time, I had gone through quite a few chips.

As the time was running out on the rebuy period, I made yet another mistake. I decided to “gamble” since I could just rebuy before the end of the round. After several players had limped in, the player from the small-blind pushed all-in. I knew if I called I would be heads up with him so I would only need to get lucky against one player. I didn’t get lucky and I was now out of chips. I went to the desk, did my rebuy and went to my new table just as everybody went to break. I got back from the break and had 5000 chips with blinds at 100/200 and I folded for 2 complete orbits getting dealt no playable hands. I felt like I had gotten over my tilt and I was back to thinking clearly and was going to give myself a chance to win the tournament. Oh, how wrong I was…

3 players limped in to a pot and I check from the BB with J/7 of diamonds. The flop comes with all diamonds, 8 high. The player on my left had been pretty aggressive against flops with all small cards, and with 5 players in the pot I fully expected him to stab at the pot. I planned to check raise him all-in against any bet he made on the flop. My plan went downhill when everybody checked the flop. To make things worse, the turn was another diamond. I hate my hand now. To my complete surprise, everybody checks again. On the river, the board paired 6s. I thought it was possible that I have the best hand. I bet out 500 and the player to my left thinks for a minute and then flat calls. After everybody else folds, I say “You probably got me” and turn over my hand. The player says, “I got you” and flips over just a 6. He then waits about 5 or 10 seconds (felt more like a minute) and turns over the ace of diamonds and laughs. I was livid. I asked him why he slow rolled me. He laughs again.

It’s at this point where my tilt meter went haywire. I calmly folded the next two hands against all-in bets before me. But on the first hand that folded to me I raised with J/7 suited. I got re-raised. I pushed all-in and was called by 6-6. I made 2 pair and doubled up. That would be the last pot I would win. My bust-out hand was completely uneventful. I pushed with A/4 and got called by K/5 and 10/8 suited. It didn’t hold up and I was on my way home.

I can’t say that the night was without it’s lessons learned. Mainly this: don’t consider doing a rebuy if you have been on tilt for the past 30 minutes.