Mad Man Poker

God, I forgot how sweet the taste of winning can taste!

These last few months I have been confronted with a cold streak that bordered on being criminally insane!
I saw my flopped set of 7’s being attacked on an overplayed hand of pocket kings only to see a king pop up on the river. I had a night where I managed to get aces 4 times, and saw them cracked 4 times.
I witnessed a stack fall, carefully nurtured over the span of an evening to get crushed by a combination of beats that just are not supposed to happen, and my own sheer frustration getting the better of me. I pushed on a paired king with an ace and 4 to the straight on the board, realising I had the losing hand, knowing I had the losing hand, kicking myself for pushing, but still knowing I was going to push, because of the frustration that nothing I tried seem to work. And at the levels I tend to play, that can cost you a whole lot of your bankroll.

I bordered on becoming busted. Even more, if it weren’t for 2 factors, by now I would have been confirmed busto. And yes, we’re talking full bankroll here.

First, I cut up my bankroll and drained it to a fifth of it’s original size.

Secondly, I got confronted with myself by someone who I don’t even consider a friend. Over the last year or so, I came across the same players quite often, and got rather familiar with some of them, but they always stayed “poker buddies”, people I saw at a virtual table, talked hands with over messenger (afterwards, don’t worry) and came to respect, as they started to accept me as “just one of the boys”. One of those guys is an Italian rock, and then I’m not just talking in poker here. Cris has built a life around playing poker and is now working part time, spending the other half of his time purely on paying his bills with 2 cards in his (virtual) hands. And being succesful, from what I can tell.

On one of my loosing sessions, I all of a sudden saw a message via MSN by Cris. We were at the same table, and this was a first. We never collide, since in a way we’re 2 sharks at the same buffet and therefore essentially oponnents. Still I opened the message, and it just said “stop! now!” I asked him what was going on, and he repeated “you need to stop playing! now!”
He was right. I was down 120 over my 2 tables and frustrated out of my mind. Still I wouldn’t stop, and Cris did the one thing a poker friend should do in a situation like this. He attacked the living hell out of me, stating he would chase me down for misplaying untill I left the table or started playing decent again. I left and stayed angry at him for 2 weeks.

When I saw him again online he started scolding me with whatever he could come up with. I was a fish, I was a nit, I should be thankfull he tried to stop me and I deserved not better than to go busto if I didn’t accept his help.
Wait … what? Help? And yes, he helped me.

The last few days Cris made me play in 5c/10c games, playing 4 tables at once. He forbade me to go to my normal stakes and ordered me to drain my already battered online roll. I was allowed to keep 200 dollars in my account and do exactely as he told me. I did.
I can assure you, playing under a nickname that has “Mad Man” in it and not getting a VPIP over 20 is creepy. I am used to bashing out at a VPIP of around 35 and trying to control my table with every orbid of play.
Now I was playing with a scheme Cris gave me on a second screen and was denied the “fun” in experimenting with “off hands”. I played the top 25 hands of the grid and sometimes was allowed to put pressure with my position. Nothing beyond that. For an action junkie like myself, this is the most boring thing you can imagine. Even at 4 tables I had plenty of time to sit and stare at my screen because no hands were playing out at that moment and I craved action.

But the plan worked. I won again!
The opposition was nothing like I was used to and neglecting to believe how bad some people play at this level, I probably missed out on some oppurtunities, but I won again! Consistently. This hadn’t happen to me in over 6 months!

Cris let me play out again today, and for the first time in weeks, I entered a table at my normal 25c/50c stakes and started playing. Putting up 150 over 3 tables, my mission was very simple: I was not allowed to leave my tables before I had won over 1 buy in or lost 1 buy in.

I did as I was asked and 1 player (who must have been the worst player I ever saw) dropped almost his entire stack to me. Resulting in a win of over 90 dollar for the entire session, which lasted 97 hands. In 97 hands, I did what I couldn’t do in the 1000 I played before that.

I would have loved to post the graph of this session, or the graph of my year untill now, but the size of these files seems not so kind for posting here, so you’ll have to believe me on it (or given the chance if we know each other in real life ask me to show you through some other medium).

I’m not saying I’m out my valley yet, but I’m definately refreshed and trying to start my travel back up.

What surprises me the most is that there is actually someone out there who could teach me to play rock solid tight Texas Hold’em poker.
Tomorrow I’ll go and see what I can do in a live game. Not that I’m promising to go and play tight, but in realising it is now a fully fledged part of my arsenal, I might have found a way out of my losing streak. And that counts for a lot.

The Mad Man