On Monkey Tilt?
April 25, 2008
The last 1500 hands or so have been pretty brutal, especially when compared to my (unsustainably) high win rate during the first couple of weeks of the month. This is what a ~400BB downswing can look like -
My first take on this, obviously, was that I am on monkey tilt and maybe not catching as many cards as I was, hence, running bad as well. I was going thro’ a few hands where I lost big pots to see if I was tilting, making stupid bets or calls, etc. Here are a few of those -
Full Tilt Poker, $0.15/$0.30 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
My table image was that of a maniac, I was raising most hands, re-raising pre-flop and re-raising c-bets a lot. I was showing down a lot of crappy hands that had connected with the flop, calling down 3 streets with mid/bottom pair sometimes.
MP: $85.45
CO: $66.80
BTN: $100.30
SB: $59.40
Hero (BB): $46.25
UTG: $21.80
Pre-Flop: A
9
dealt to Hero (BB)
4 folds, SB raises to $0.90, Hero calls $0.60
I decided to just call given that I was going to have position on SB for the hand, moreover, everybody else had folded to him, if I were him, I would have raised with any two cards. I figured that there was a good chance that I had the better hand. I also had no specific reads on the villain, dont think he was on the table for a very long time.
Flop: ($1.80) 4 J 9 (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $8,
Generally, a pair with the nut flush draw with 2 cards to come is generally a very strong hand and I play them very fast. My objective was to get all-in if possible right away or to make the villain fold. At this level (NL30), I’ve found that overbets are usually called down because villains usually think its just an attempt to buy the pot; depending on the villain and my table image, I use this tactic now and then.
SB raises to $24, Hero raises to $45.35 and is All-In, SB calls $21.35
Villain obliged by re-raising and then calling my all-in.
Turn: ($92.50) 2
(2 Players – 1 is All-In)
River: ($92.50) 4
(2 Players – 1 is All-In)
Unfortunately my flush didn’t fill in, and I didn’t catch any of my other outs (Aces or nines). Now anything better than a pair of nines beats me.
Results: $92.50 Pot ($3 Rake)
SB showed K K (two pair, Kings and Fours) and WON $89.50 (+$43.25 NET)
Hero showed A 9 (two pair, Nines and Fours) and LOST (-$46.25 NET)
Villain had cowboys! Much better than the range I’d put him on, and that was about 150BB down the crapper.
Was this a bad push? Was I tilting when I pushed all-in with the nut flush draw and middle pair on the board? My first impulse as soon as the river was dealt was that I was tilting and was spewing left, right and center.
Then I tried to be more objective about it, and here is what I figured -
Board: 4h 9h Jh
Dead:
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 69.224% 68.54% 00.68% 64465 640.50 { Ah9s }
Hand 1: 30.776% 30.09% 00.68% 28304 640.50 { 88+, A8s+, KTs+, AJo+, KQo }
Even after assigning a reasonably tight range for villain, I still had close to 70% equity in the pot. Once my overbet was re-raised, with all the dead money in the middle, it was pretty much an automatic all-in. The only question now is – was my overbet a smart move! While it might have chased away any villain without at least a pair of jacks and one other heart most of the times, it probably was a bit too spewish! I still have to think about this a bit more to figure out what my line should have been.
