Flushed down the river...

After my nemesis drew to, and hit, the third most unlikely flush in a row on me, taking my stack along with it, I had to admit that this week had not been a good one in Poker House.  Threads started the tumble at the beginning of the week, through no fault of his own that any of us could find.  Then came Superchimp with a hiccupping sort of spiral that looked about to turn around on Thursday but then plummeted forcefully down the other side.  I didn't think that I could do much damage at my stakes and was, in fact, doing quite well before today.  Then the cards and the "chasers" (players who will draw to anything no matter what you tell them you have) conspired to throw me down in the muck as well.  Only one of us escaped the mayhem, and he is thankfully crushing it.  Now, it's bad enough when you are watching your stack populating and repopulating everyone else's while playing alone, but having three out of four poker players living and playing together going through poker hell at the same time...I'm just happy that the war room even survived.  Nothing broken.  Only bits of clutter starting to collect as the general apathy and despondency set in the last couple days.  But that is what Mondays are for right?  Cleaning.  Purging.  Certainly not playing poker.  Just soundly abusing all the losers that raped and pillaged our hard-earned bankrolls.

This brings up an interesting issue: how does one cope with losing in spite of good play?  Poker players refer to the nearly universal resulting rampant rage as "tilt".  Cursing the poker gods.  Fate.  Hating life.  Poker is a lifestyle that will necessarily include the statistical plunges when the large percentages of equity on the first three cards turn into zero by the fifth.  As such, there are countless videos, books, and postings on every poker website out there about how to become "tiltless".  I cannot add much to such a wealth, but I can say how I am learning and striving to deal with it.  First and foremost is pre-emption.  The more in shape your mind and body are, the easier it is to deal with all the crap that is beyond your control.  You remember to stay detached from the cards and just roll with the situation as it unfolds.  And when it unfolds badly, you are hopefully able to look at the series of actions and the information available and judge the quality of your play.  Of course, when you finally get the "mark" (a generally stupendously bad player that has been dying to give you his money) to put all his stack in with you before the community cards even come out and you're sitting on an 80% chance of taking it all and he hits his miracle(s)...well, let's just say that pre-emption is often not enough in and of itself.  So, you're sitting there trying to figure out if there's any way you can hack the poker site to find out just who this fool is and go to his house and let him know exactly what you think of what he just did...and then you force yourself to draw in one, long ragged breath and slowly let it out.  This hopefully stops the red rage from clouding everything and you hopefully make the decision to take another long, slow breath.  Now, if you're me, you find that you still want to break something even after all this lovely breathing in and out.  When this happens, you have to stop.  You sit out all your tables, and you go for a run.  Or do some pushups.  Or play a videogame where you get to smash everything you want.  Maybe all of the above.  You grab one or all of your housemates and show them how badly these idiot poker players abused you.  And then, you start working on the pre-emptive process all over again. 

There is no end to this process obviously.  It is like any practice of the mind and body: every day is a new opportunity to approach perfection.  It won't ever be quite there, and it certainly has not been even close the last couple days.  So, tomorrow the practice continues and tonight the steam is finally and thankfully dissipating. 

Cheers,
Jess (aka hopefleur; aaka tankers)