That's it, I'm done with online poker

Ardent

I debated whether or not to post this but there's nothing shameful here - worst thing that can happen is I'll be called a fish - and others may learn from my experience.

I tilted away my entire bankroll on Saturday in a couple of hours. I can actually laugh about it now but at the time it was a scary experience because I never thought that could happen to me.

I've been playing online poker successfully for the last year or so, albeit on and off. I cashed out a few of times and had delusions of supplementing my income by playing online poker in the evenings. I had deposited 15 euros into my VC Poker a/c two weeks ago and had worked this up to 660 euros playing cash games. Things were looking good again. Then the unimaginable happened.

I took a few bad beats on the .25/.50 tables and lost my head. And I mean I lost my head. Instead of turning off the PC and walking away to fight another day I started chasing my losses at $1/$2. Things weren't happening quick enough for me so I started pushing the action. Needless to say I got trounced in no time. I then put the rest of my bankroll on $3/$6 and an hour later it was all gone. It's all a bit of a haze now but I do remember at the time thinking "this is really happening" yet I was unable to stop it. Near the end, I just felt exhausted and really sick of poker and didn't mind giving away the last of my cash.

I felt really calm after it was all gone, almost relieved, but I was seriously spooked at how I could blow so much cash like that in such a short space of time. I never thought I was capable of that. I've never been a gamber and poker is the closest I've gotten to gambling - I was always confident I was in control because of the skill factor required to play the game. Not anymore. The only poker I'm playing for the forseeable future is the odd home game, I don't want anything like that happening again.

Question for the forum:

I feel if I had the time to play poker this mightn't have happened. Let me explain: I've always felt that time was against me when I was playing poker - there was a match on TV soon, the girlfiend wants to go out, I have to get up for work in the morning, etc etc - and I just didn't have the necessary patience to play the game properly (cash games predominately). Consequently, the game began to piss me off quite often, particularly if there was a slow player at the table, the cards weren't coming my way for a while, etc. but especially when I got a bad beat. Was it just me that experienced this or does anyone go through this too? I really think you need to play poker full time to truly excel at it.

Thanks for listening, hope this opens a few people's eyes to the game and helps others not to get too complacent.

PaddyjDunne

I understand exactly where you are coming from. I do this a lot too. Online poker really frustrates me. It is a bit of a lottery most of the time for me because, as you said, I am always sandwiching the game between two things I have to do. Live poker is social and more fun in my opinion. At least if there is a slow player at a table at a live game, you can have a laugh with the other players there. Online poker, while fun sometimes, is boring and dangerous. Thats just my opinion though

a-k-47

i wouldnt worry about it to much, seems to me its the first time you have lost your BR due to a major tilt, its happened to the best of players so get the im a fish thought out of ur head. Dont think of it as losing 600 dollars, u only invested 15, i know its hard to but thats the way i look on it when ive a bad day. Give yourself a break , cut down your hours per day etc. when your ready im sure you'll turn another tenner into a few hundred:) good luck

shoutman

I think that most people will or have already thrown away their bankroll in a night of madness, but once you have done it once you are not very likely to do it again, well i dont think so anyway. Like paddy, for me online poker is very hot and cold, at least when playing live you have the satisfaction of socialising where as online this is not really the case. Also as stupid as this may sound when playing online you dont have anyone to call you an idiot for blowing away your br, well you do but you can choose to ignore them a lot easier then when its your mate who went to the card club with you.

clint_silver

Heres my take on it that may help to explain...
dont they say about gambling that its the rush that you become addicted to, its not the winning or losing. I bet you felt that sinking feeling in your stomach, that unmistakable feeling that you think youre gonna vomit and lifes gonna end, and the realisation you may be a gambler, how am I gonna tell my GF/wife. But then the day after, you wake and youre still sick at what happened but the feeling isnt as intense. Day 3 after a big rush the feeling is mostly gone and you start to analyze what happened and realise that it was probably an extreme, lets go again, so you stick another tenner in. Then you win 2.5k in an hour and the other rush kicks in. Youre buzzin, you ring your friends, your gonna be rich, your dreaming of giving up your job, wait til I tell you about this hand I played , aw man, poker/horses/blackjack (delete where app.) is sooo easy to make money at... and then of course the inevitable happens and you either blow a lot of that winnings or you lose enough of it to bring you back to reality. Did anyone see that that episode of "my name is earl" with the golfer who thought he was better then he was?

I really wouldnt worry about it. If youre a decent player and havent lost money that you hadnt won already then take those couple of days to get rid of the rush and analyze what happened. If you enjoy playin, the next time youre on a losin streak, and as sure as eggs is eggs it'll happen again, as easy as it may seem to do so cos you think youre a decent player, dont go to higher tables, exercise control and either walk away or play lower limit tables, or even better, dont play cash tables at all, STTs or 1v1s, to get the dead cards out of the system, you'll still have a BR no matter how low. Dont chase, and dont EVER leave your BR with nothing in it. Even if you have 5-10$ left you can make things happen with it. Ive found the worst feelin of all is reloading so I try to avoid that.

2 cents from someone who used to have rushes of both kinds a lot.

MrPillowTalk

I wouldnt worry too much about throwing your br away it happens to most players and has happened to me on a number of occasions.

You should maybe evaluate your opinion of poker, you dont consider yourself a gambler but in the short run, poker is very much a gambling activity. At one point I never considered myself a gambler either however the longer Ive played I now realise that I am a gambler, Im just a gambler who tries to turn the edge in my own favour by selecting a gambling activity that I can have a more direct input into my probability of success. I have also learned to deal with the negative side of poker i.e. downswings, bad beats and my own bad play much easier since coming to terms with the fact that everytime I sit at a table its a gamble.

hotspur

Ardent wrote:

worst thing that can happen is I'll be called a fish

F*cking donkey!

Just kidding

Tilt is what seperates us from the animals, it's a wonderful ennobling thing which affirms our humanity and makes us appreciate the limitations of our mortality. Rejoice in your tilting away your €15 costed bankroll, you did it on purpose (you just don't understand it consciously) and you got something out of it (but you don't understand quite what or why). I'll do some quoting of your post to give you an idea by way of discourse analysis what the real story there was, read it as a logical story

Ardent wrote:

I cashed out a few of times and had delusions...
I feel if I had the time to play poker this mightn't have happened...
I've always felt that time was against me...
I just didn't have the necessary patience to play the game properly...
Consequently, the game began to piss me off quite often...
I really think you need to play poker full time to truly excel at it...
Then the unimaginable happened...
I don't want anything like that happening again...
I just felt exhausted and really sick of poker and didn't mind giving away the last of my cash...
I felt really calm after it was all gone, almost relieved...
I can actually laugh about it now...
The only poker I'm playing for the forseeable future is the odd home game.

Not so mysterious after all then is it? It was a sound rational way to solve a problem of wanting to put in the hours and make money online but not being able to because of time / maybe something else, and being pissed off about the situation. Problem solved, hence being able to laugh about it. And let's face it suffering a €15 loss is hardly "the unimaginable happening" The unimaginable is that you're quitting online poker

accensi0n

I've done it before.

Learning experience. Was a helpful kick in the ass for me. Glad it happened.

Ardent

Lads,

Thanks for the encouragement. I still feel like a fool but maybe not such a complete donkey.

clint_silver wrote:

If you enjoy playin, the next time...

This is the problem, I'm not sure I do. Online poker is boring and frustrates the bejesus out of me because of things I mentioned in my original post. I'm not sure going back playing is what I want to do any time soon.

Hotspur: that is one hell of a Freudian reply. Are you suggesting that, because I wanted to make money but somehow realised I couldn't, this happened? Maybe there's something to that; the last time I cashed out was prompted by a couple of minor bad beats at the end of a good streak- I think at the time I realised that I didn't have the time/inclination to recoup my recent losses, cashed out my bankroll and didn't play again for a couple of months. I don't understand why I would purposefully dump 600 odd online this time rather than cash it out.

DeVore

Everytime I try to sandwich a session between two things, I end up loosing money and I've stopped doing it. *IF* you play again, schedule it and make a session out of it. I agree with you personally though, I'm not wild about online poker and I find it hard to play because of the swings.

DeV.

roryc

I wish I could give you a reason to keep playing... If you want to quit, my best advice would be to quit. Online poker is THE most annoying and frustrating thing I have ever had the misfortune of being part of. I gave it up entirely for about 3 or 4 months, and it was like a holiday.... so relaxing and stress free...

I play nowadays mainly to win tickets to bigger games. When I sit down it is 99% out of boredom (1% of me still believes skill is a factor:)).

In regards to losing your bankroll, I've done this plenty of times, most recently today when I bubbled 8 out of 10 $20 STT's...lovely, a new personal best:). But I never have much in the account in the first place. Anytime I have a nice win I immediately withdraw, before I donate it to one of the many fish swimming on these sites.

gl anyway, sorry I couldn't offer any useful advice.....

mewso

I have to say I don't much value the "don't worry about it, happens all the time to me" type of advice here. There are many different ways you can react to this. First off you can stop playing if you know you can't change and that would be a good decision if you can't change. Of course you can also keep playing depite the fact you know you will consistently blow up on a regular basis. If you learn from this and it never happens again then fine your a player who learns quickly. The fact is to make money in poker you need incredible disipline and a BR that can handle the odd dodgy session. I get the impression that alot of players are playing well beyond their limits from alot of dicsussions I see here. Thats fine if you can afford it and don't intend to make money. Otherwise you need an attitude adjustment.
I fall into the bracket of being a player of leisure at the moment. I have too many other things to do. Work, PC gaming, social life etc. I've made a few bob recently and it would not be the end of the world if I lost it but I'm trying to only play when it seems appropriate. At the moment thats not too often. Next week it could be every night but I'll have to be in the right frame of mind before playing any game. I want to see if I can win consistently when I have the time and the right attitude to play a good game.
I think my bottom line here is if this happens to you again then you should seriously consider your approach to poker, what you want from it
and if you can sit at a game with the right amount of patience and attitude to get what you want.

Lafortezza

I agree with Muso.
I have poker as a small side income, enough to pay my car insurance and spending money for a holiday during the year.
The amount of money I have online at the moment is far too valuable to me to be dicking about and tilting and playing limits I can't afford.

If possible I never want to have to deposit to an online poker site again. So I stick to limits where I have at minimum 25 buy-ins, usually 40-50. I also multitable so that if I lose money on 2 tables, hopefully variance has me up some money at the other tables.

I can't understand how people will have X buy-ins for their usual level, lose a few, go on tilt and after losing 5 more think it's still a good idea to continue playing. I actually value money.
Bankroll management and tilt control are the key differences in being a winning and losing player imo.

kickintheteeth

Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt(actually the whole shop)!

Put $200 onto UB, got upto $5,500 after a few weeks, playin $5/10, lost two buy in of $500, and went up to $10/25, lost the rest that nite.

I'm am the tilt king. Tilt is definately my worst poker attribute.