As he illustrated via monkeys who got a squirt of juice, and their dopamine levels surged.  However, this surge diminished quickly, just like how humans have diminishing returns of happiness on new purchases.  But if you give the monkey cues before the squirt (lights flashing, bells ringing, etc), the surge doesn’t diminish with each squirt.

Hence gambling.

Slot machine sirens are obvious, but I think the roulette ball stopping on your number, the dice coming up seven, or the dealer flipping over a card that makes your hand are cues that are just as powerful, provide just as much dopamine, and encourage humans to try to find the pattern in randomness.

He described a Parkinson’s patient who was given a dopamine agonist , and suddenly, with no prior gambling tendency, was compelled to put her whole life savings into a slot machine over a six month period.  As she felt, in a rush of the drug that she could figure out the randomness of the system. This is the essence of how I tilt in poker, and I think the reason why I would lose control of myself at the end of long sessions regardless if I was winning or losing.

Anyway, as I pursue a career change to where I’ll be analyzing stocks for a living, which is extremely similar to poker, I wonder how long I can keep myself from doing something incredibly stupid.

So, let’s play What Are The Insanely Obvious Records Pitchfork Neglected!!  Yay!  In the first round let’s use their best of the 1980’s list… The rules are simple, stroll through the list and try to find missing landmark records.  Take your time, I’ll just sit here and sing the Jeopardy theme, do de do do, do de dum…  Ok did you spot the #1 and #2 omissions?  Yes!  Good call!  Metallica’s  “Master of Puppets” and “Ride The Lightening” are nowhere.

All right, good job contestant… For the bonus round, let’s play the same game with their 1970’s list.  Take your time, I’ll sing the Tic-Tac-Dough theme song, do de dooo did-da-le do de dum… Ding ding ding!  Yes!  Good eye again!  Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” is in absentia.

Ok, ok, I know, you’re a TS reader, so that means that you’re probably the right type of white person who likes his/her metal contained to the ironic days of his/her youth.  But, A. Why?? Don’t you know that metal is good for you?  And B. this isn’t about you, this is about 1. getting history right, and 2. about how the rise of Rotten Tomatoes/crowd-sourced/meta systems of review that work really well for video games, and reasonably well for books and movies, is terrible for music, and leads to sites like Pitchfork to generally put their blinders on and stick to NPR style music, and avoid anything out of their milieu.

(more about this last point coming soon)

So, now I’m just a tired man, talking my dreams to sleep, blah blah blah… Anyway, no more poker blogging. I cashed out my bankroll, took the few thousand bucks of profit I’ve made since writing this, and called it quits. And to be honest, it feels great. I mean, my days feel great, I sleep better, more focused on what I should be focused on, blah blah blah.

FAQ
Do I miss the game? Yes.

Do I miss feeling compelled to either play or study poker? No.

Will I play again?
Of course, but not to the degree of obsession I was playing.

Is this blog dead?
“life tilt” is dead. However, I plan to start blogging about music in the near future. For which I need 1. a new title that I haven’t settled on, and 2. a better thought out angle than what I’ve currently come up with. I have thoughts, and some vague ideas of posts that I haven’t written out yet.

NBC’s Poker After Dark kicks off four consecutive weeks of original programming late night beginning on September 7 with a cash game that is sure to delight. The game will run for two consecutive weeks, and will feature many of the biggest names in the game today. Taking part in this highly anticipated game are Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Howard “The Professor” Lederer, Eli Elezra, Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, and Phil Ivey. The minimum buy-in for this game is $100,000, and the game will begin with blinds at $200/$400 along with a $100 ante.

via New Poker After Dark: “Top Guns”. Long-awaited two week cash game begins on September 7 | Online Poker News.

Well, this is somewhat exciting.  Maybe they can get an announcer who isn’t a complete moron like all the other poker guys on NBC seem to be.  I don’t hold my breath, however, I will check this out on the Hulu when they post it.

I’m feeling like a slacker looking at the number of hours I’ve played, but I’ve been reasonably busy as I spent the week learning economic calculus for my impending financial classes, and I also managed to make a nice dent in the second novel I’m working on.

I stopped studying poker videos this week. I think I’ve learned all I need to know to beat the $50 game. I feel another corner turned. I make very few mistakes these days. I hope it lasts, I hope I will not tilt again. I thought I’d gotten to this superior state of play a number of times before… am I there now? I am not sure. The difference now, I think, is the life coach stuff I mentioned in my last update: learning how to prepare for sessions, how to end them, how to avoid tilting, how to recognize tilt, etc etc. The most concrete and helpful realizations I’ve come to are that exercising while listening to an audio book or podcast first thing in the morning, and then studying until lunch time, is a somewhat fail-safe method to achieve Zen for the day’s session. Anyway, I’m feeling good, I’ve had a little bit of success over the past two weeks. But it’s way too early to tell.

Highlight hands, as always, below the fold:

BB was playing 83% of his hands over 30 hands leading up to this. But, he’d started going completely insane after his A4 lost to an AK on an A high board, and he’d shoved every hand for the last 4 hands in a row. So, my call here was to induce another shove. The button shoving over it was gravy. It’s somewhat of a high variance play, and re-raising the button’s initial raise would deter the button from shoving over the SB without AK or TT+. As played I can expect to be up against 2 or even 3 over cards, but with the dead money in the pot, and playing it 3 ways, I’m getting it in with way positive EV almost always.

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 263997
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $50.00
Hero (SB): $113.55
BB: $22.65
UTG: $77.35
MP: $133.05
CO: $77.90

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is SB with 9 9
3 folds, BTN raises to $1.50, Hero calls $1.25, BB raises to $22.65 all in, BTN raises to $50 all in, Hero calls $48.50

Flop: ($122.65) 3 K 4 (3 players – 2 are all in)

Turn: ($122.65) 3 (3 players – 2 are all in)

River: ($122.65) 5 (3 players – 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $122.65
BTN mucks 7 7
Hero shows 9 9 (two pair, Nines and Threes)
BB mucks 2 Q
Hero wins $54.70
Hero wins $64.95
(Rake: $3.00)

I posted this hand on 2+2 and everyone said I played every street wrong. I can’t disagree. However, I made pretty much a soul read on the river here and put him on exactly KK. I didn’t have much history with him, he had just normal TAG stats, but I couldn’t come up with any hand he could call me with that I’d be beating, and I figured that a value bet would either get a fold from hands I’m beating (so I get $0 more than I would have if I go to showdown), or a shove from hands beating me that I’d be pretty committed to call as there would be about $100 in the pot and I’d only have to call off another $20. So, as it worked out, I saved myself $35 on the river. I still hate my play on every other street though.

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 255018
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $74.05
UTG: $52.25
MP: $50.75
Hero (CO): $53.80
BTN: $50.00
SB: $51.75

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is CO with A A
1 fold, MP raises to $1.50, Hero calls $1.50, BTN calls $1.50, 2 folds

Flop: ($5.25) 5 J J (3 players)
MP bets $3.50, Hero calls $3.50, BTN folds

Turn: ($12.25) T (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $13, MP calls $13

River: ($38.25) K (2 players)
MP checks, Hero checks

Final Pot: $38.25
MP shows K K (a full house, Kings full of Jacks)
Hero mucks A A
MP wins $36.40
(Rake: $1.85)

Much of August’s excitement can be attributed to one person – “martonas”.

The still-anonymous player thrust himself into the highest stakes in August, battling it out with some of the top players in the world.

Things went really well initially for “martonas”, as he/she was able to rake in millions of dollars in profits in just a few short weeks.

However, variance (and a player named “durrrr”) soon caught up to the Swedish player, and “martonas” ended the month with a loss of over $700k.

Basically the dude worked his way from 5/10 up to 50/100, before he somehow got the funds to jump up to the biggest game online. Looks like he got lucky for awhile finding complete disaster:

Kind of insane, speaks to the variance of Omaha, and poker in general. The lesson to be learned is this: don’t mess with those guys unless you have proven yourself to be a super poker genius. They have the bankroll to not care if you beat them for a million, they’re way better than you, and they will bust you eventually.

2nd case in point proving the above is Gus Hansen:

On the flip side, Gus Hansen lost just over $2 million dollars in the month of August, bringing his losses for the year to almost $2.2 million dollars. Hansen has been on an epic downswing over the past couple of months, as he has watched a multi-million dollar profit dissolve into a $2.2 million dollar loss.
Above from pokerking.com

So, I’ve returned to PokerStars, where I was playing all those sit and go tournaments last year. The site has about triple the number of players as Full Tilt. Therefore, while the average player on the site is no better or worse than any other site, having such a huge player pool allows for a much easier time of table selecting. Every time I’ve been on there were always at least ten games with insane stats. So, the way to play here is keeping an eye on the list of games, and getting off of tables when the retards leave them.

I have a very small sample of only 4 sessions, but I think it’s probably a more profitable site to play on for someone at the $25-$50 level. This is despite having their VIP bonuses, being equal to somewhere around half the 27% rakeback I was getting from Full Tilt.

Anyway, it’s nice to finally break a losing streak. Highlights below the fold

Like, I just said, not too hard to find the retards. Villain here was playing 75% of his hands, and going to showdown 31%. I’d gotten caught bluffing a few hands earlier, so maybe that had something to do with his call.
Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 253908
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $148.55
BB: $50.00
UTG: $129.45
MP: $76.05
CO: $66.40
Hero (BTN): $84.85

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is BTN with Q Q
UTG calls $0.50, 1 fold, CO raises to $2, Hero raises to $6, 2 folds, UTG calls $5.50, 1 fold

Flop: ($14.75) 3 Q 8 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $10.50, UTG calls $10.50

Turn: ($35.75) T (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $24, UTG calls $24

River: ($83.75) 3 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $44.35 all in, UTG calls $44.35

Final Pot: $172.45
UTG shows 8 9 (two pair, Eights and Threes)
Hero shows Q Q (a full house, Queens full of Threes)
Hero wins $169.45
(Rake: $3.00)

Same Villain a few hands later (after he’d sucked out on me for a huge pot in the interim…). I’m thinking my shove here was kind of bad and that I should have check/raised. The pros of shoving are: there were about a million hands he’d call with (TT-AA, Ax of diamonds, maybe even AKo), only 75% of them he’d bet with, and making him make a terrible call with a draw or over pair is good. The cons are: if he has any other hand, shoving gives him an easy fold and he doesn’t get to bluff. It’s somewhat debatable though, as shown in the hand above, dude couldn’t fold middle pair.

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold’em – 5 players – View hand 253914
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $48.00
CO: $104.45
BTN: $50.75
SB: $73.70
Hero (BB): $132.20

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is BB with 7 7
1 fold, CO raises to $2, 1 fold, SB raises to $6.50, Hero raises to $18, CO calls $16, 1 fold

Flop: ($42.50) 7 9 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $114.20 all in, CO calls $86.45 all in

Turn: ($215.40) 9 (2 players – 2 are all in)

River: ($215.40) 3 (2 players – 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $215.40
CO shows J J (two pair, Jacks and Nines)
Hero shows 7 7 (a full house, Sevens full of Nines)
Hero wins $213.40
(Rake: $2.00)

The poker talk was kept to a minimum, and was relegated to vague cast off one liners (e.g. “he 3 bets 35%,” “I’m set over set,”), this undoubtedly makes it much more entertaining TV. However, being a poker nerd I wanted more than anything to hear the dinner conversation in it’s entirety when Durrrr and Phil Galfond were hanging out with the guys.

The remainder of the episode was rounded out with the guys trying to hit golf balls into their pool, living it up in Las Vegas, and making the biggest loser on the team each week do something zany. Which is amusing in a Jackass-light way.

The past couple weeks I’ve watched about an hour of poker tutorials a day every day. I think this has contributed to my bad play a lot. While I’ve learned tons from these videos, I’ve misapplied a lot of what I’ve been taught. My poker brain is at least an order of magnitude better than it was last year, I’ve acquired what is commonly known as “fancy play syndrome.” This means what it sounds like: that I’m habitually using fancy plays where the standard plays would be superior. Not that the fancy plays aren’t good, but the standard plays are standard for a reason and should be used most often, especially at the $25 level I’m at now.

If there is a silver lining it’s that through this downswing I think I’ve learned how to manage myself better. I’ve resisted the “my life is played out a like a Jheri curl, I’m ready to die!” impulse and stuck to proper bankroll rules. “Leatherass,” one of the most successful players online, mixes what to do “away from the table,” with playing advice in his videos. He recommends a kind of life coach whose videos are only vaguely about poker, and more about how to perform your best all the time. I thought it was self-help BS at first, as the first videos I watched went through vague breathing exercises and talked about “clearing space in your mind.” But then he got into some very practical stuff that I realized I wasn’t doing in any meaningful way. Such as: writing out goals for the month and each session, not “I want to win X dollars,” but rather, “I want to improve ___ and ___ in my game.” Having set routines before and after playing. How to recognize and handle tilt. Etc etc.

So, I listened to him, and while I’m still losing, and I can feel somewhat better about losing, and take a proper analysis of my play. I guess. Maybe. Whatever, losing sucks no matter how you rationalize it.

Highlights (lowlights?) below the fold:

Villain was playing 78% of his hands. Not much to do here but laugh and laugh.

Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 229638
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (SB): $29.40
BB: $18.06
UTG: $49.80
MP: $29.29
CO: $33.88
BTN: $25.00

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is SB with A A
2 folds, CO calls $0.25, 1 fold, Hero raises to $1, 1 fold, CO calls $0.75

Flop: ($2.25) Q T 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $2.25, CO calls $2.25

Turn: ($6.75) 6 (2 players)
Hero bets $6, CO calls $6

River: ($18.75) 6 (2 players)
Hero bets $20.15 all in, CO calls $20.15

Final Pot: $59.05
Hero shows A A (two pair, Aces and Sixes)
CO shows 6 7 (three of a kind, Sixes)
CO wins $56.10
(Rake: $2.95)

The play I made preflop here was good. On the flop was a total spew. Not just because a guy will show up with a K or a set, or a huge draw a lot of the time, but shoving like I did makes it so insanely easy for anyone with those hands to make their decision. A bet of $10 and folding to a shove would have probably been the best line.

Full Tilt Poker $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold’em – 6 players – View hand 229641
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $57.19
Hero (BB): $25.95
UTG: $57.94
MP: $83.60
CO: $57.57
BTN: $120.60

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BB with Q A
UTG raises to $0.85, MP calls $0.85, CO calls $0.85, 1 fold, SB calls $0.75, Hero raises to $4.50, 2 folds, CO calls $3.65, SB calls $3.65

Flop: ($15.20) Q K 4 (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $21.45 all in, CO calls $21.45, SB raises to $52.69 all in, CO calls $31.24

Turn: ($142.03) 6 (3 players – 2 are all in)

River: ($142.03) A (3 players – 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $142.03
SB shows 7 5 (a flush, Ace high)
Hero shows Q A (two pair, Aces and Queens)
CO shows Q K (two pair, Kings and Queens)
SB wins $62.48
SB wins $76.55
(Rake: $3.00)