Sometimes you do it all right and it doesn't work out. That was last night. Let me start off by saying that last night wasn't all bad, actually quite the contrary, it was rather excellent. I met up with Wein and we had dinner. It was great to see him again and catch up. He is a great guy if you have never talked with him. Quite a bit more knowledgeable than his years, plus he's pretty damn funny. That was the fun part. We decided to go and play a little 1-2 PLO live for fun. Well it was sort of fun. Okay, maybe not totally true, it was quite enjoyable. I ended up stacking a girl two to my left when I picked up 3 different straight draws on the flop and she hit a set. We ended up getting it in and I turned the wheel to double up nicely. Then it got rough. In 4 hands in the space of 20 minutes or so I ended up hitting strong hands that could have been questionable to go all the way with online (top set vs. combo draws; multiple 2 pair options on dry flops, that sort of stuff) but live, especially 1-2 you have to go with. So I did. Hard. Brick city for the Gman. Which brings me to the key point of this talk. I felt something I had never felt playing poker before last night, uber tilt. I will admit I have tilted before playing online. I have made stupid decisions and paid the price for them, lost flips late all of the usual hoopla. This was different. This was the first time in a long time I dropped significant dollars in a very short period of time on a host of rough hands live. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. My brain was like a swarm of angry hornets. I couldn't think about anything that I didn't keep coming back to how upset it made me. Amen for discipline, I had reloaded after the first 2 hands, but when all 4 we over so was I. I walked to the bar and had a Coke and watched SportsCenter. It hurt. Bad. I actually had trouble falling asleep because my brain was so annoyed. I went online and checked my odds to make sure I made good plays, and when it came back as good against possible ranges it made it even worse.
So needless to say I'm taking a few days off. I managed to get to sleep and relax some, but man I don't think I have tilted that hard ever. It was quite creepy. A part of my brain was watching me in the third person and he was shocked. But now I know that it can happen and to be aware is to have insight into controlling the beast. I'm not sure how I am going to do that, but I will figure it out for sure. Oh well, time to get back to my day. Deep breath and return to normal. GL all at the tables and managing tilt! This is the Gman signing out!
FkCoolers
Top set is a dog vs certain strong draws like a fd + wrap.
PLO can be maddening. However, if you read villain to be recreational or weak you just need to go with the set since you’re still a favorite against a single draw like a fd or an open-ender.
Ugh… I hate sets in PLO on coordinated boards.
lespaulgman
I agree. I think this was a big example on the Live vs. Online difference. The problem with playing these hands live was that the strength of the field is a huge variable. Wein and I spent a good amount of time talking about this and in the end we came up with Live it was the right plays, online they were closer, but probably still okay. With live, how much people know about PLO or whether they are just looking to play and the NLHE seats are filled, if they just think they know how to play, what hands they chase all come into play. I had seen guys overplaying TP or big pre-flop pairs (KKxx, AAxx type hands) and only playing single draws because their cards were so terribly disconnected (baby flushes, etc) so it became so hard to fold any kind of made hands. The equities were brutal. Against you and other that play PLO knowledgably I can find a fold of top set on a highly coordinated board depending on the table and where I range you, live I almost have no choice but to get it in, because I could be close or more often actually have some sort of a edge. It makes Live PLO so much more complex. The hand where I stacked the girl early was a perfect example, she overplayed bottom set on a highly connected board. I ran the equities and based on my range I was actually like a 56/44 favorite on the hand, but that was the sort of stuff I was seeing (i.e. gross overplaying of weak PLO hands) so it made my subsequent decisions so much harder because the ranges we so much wider.
All in all it was fun, but PLO is a lot harder live than I think a lot of people credit it for. Because the equities are so close and live players ranges can be so wide (especially based on how much they understand of the game) decision complexity escalates quite quickly.