Meet Your Inner Idiot

One week on and how do things stand? The stats don't lie:

Bankroll: $5.83
FPP: 2,147

That's nearly a 20,000% increase on my starting position. If the trend continues then by this time next week I should have around $1,200. I guess sometimes the stats do lie.

They certainly don't tell the whole story. Yesterday, for example, saw me doing all sorts of stupid things as if I was intent on wrecking my solid (though unspectacular) progress up to that point. For a start, I got stuck on one of my 2c/4c tables - nothing out of the ordinary, just a couple of beats and some draws that went bad - but I got annoyed about the crimp it would put in my figures (as if I had a target to hit or something) and started playing Catchup Poker. Inevitably all I managed to do was dig myself deeper into a hole. Fortunately things were running smoothly on my other table and I finished a few cents ahead, but it would've been a lot more if I hadn't acted like a complete dick on table 2. Question: how the hell can you go on tilt on one table while remaining calm and sensible on another? I don't know, but I did it.

And then I got drunk. Even scraping together the money for the booze was an act of lunacy; I won't bore you with the details, but by about 6pm I found myself sat a turbo tourney already several large whiskies to the good. I can't remember what happened, but I didn't win anything, that's for sure. Now "drunk in charge of a freeroll tourney" is not a capital offence. At worst I was pissing away a few FPPs, and if that'd been the end of it then no big deal. But of course it doesn't end there, does it? No. It. Does. Not.

I watched Raging Bull (self-loathing idiot makes damn sure his talent doesn't get in the way of failure), got absolutely smashed, and thought it was the perfect time to hit the limit tables. After losing a bit at 2c/4c holdem I had what probably counts as The Poker Donkey's Number One Stupid Loser Idea: "I know, I'll win it back quickly by moving up to a bigger game". Bravo, genius! So off I went to a 5c/10c table. Well, it could've been worse: at least I didn't take my bankroll to a no-limit table (and, believe me, I've done that before). And then something completely unfair happened: I started playing great. And by "great" I don't mean "solid" or even "tight-aggressive", I mean I was playing like a complete animal. I was raising with all kinds of weird shit and then either dancing away from trouble if I didn't like the flop or beating the crap out of it if I connected. My judgement was unerringly good - I don't think I lost more than a couple of showdowns all night, and the ones I won usually left my opponent scratching his head and wondering what the hell just happened. By the end of the session the rest of the table was very wary of getting involved. And the strange thing was how calm and happy I felt. It was like I was watching somebody else play: somebody better than me. I remember laughing a lot.

Anyway, long story short: I won a couple of bucks and ended up a dollar to the good for the day. Whoop-de-do. But I really shouldn't make a habit of it. Poker's one of those games where, unless you're completely blind, you get to learn something about yourself. And I've learnt (many many times) that my game has certain self-destructive psychological flaws. Every now and then my Inner Idiot emerges and shrieks "Why be content with small gains when you can post a whopping loss?"

That's not uncommon, I think. I remember once playing $4/$8 holdem at Binion's. I was in a hand with a ragged old fella who, despite knowing I was solid and rarely bluffed, called my raise and doggedly called me down all the way with an ace on the flop. When I turned over AK he mucked and said to me, "Why did I do that? Why? I knew you had it. Never doubted it for a moment. Why did I do it?" It was like his whole life had been summed up in one hand of poker. He had tears in his eyes.

Maybe that's who I'm turning into.