Monday, February 1, 2010

wow, what a slaughter

The downside of Full Tilt Rush Poker is that when things are running bad, they run bad in fast motion. I lost three and a half buy-ins in a single hour tonight in the most soul-sapping, will-crushing session in a long time. 424 hands, I won a total of 2 pots over $3. Two out of four-hundred-twenty-four.

I don't want to recount all of the nastiness in detail, but it included getting raised off of every bluff, people folding to all my monsters, and of course suckouts. The individual hands don't matter of course - it's the piling on of bad followed by more bad followed by still more bad that starts to weigh you down. We learn that bad beats happen - we learn about coolers, we know that every move we make won't work out, we know our reads won't always be right. When you pile all of these over and over in rapid succession - you've reached a new tilt test platform that you have to endure.

As the session went on, I felt pretty tilty but I think I held it together ok. I was still playing the same and thinking through the hands and situation ok. After an hour of taking shots, though - I told myself that one more bad hand and I was shutting it down, for the sake of the bankroll. The hand came with pocket queens - I raised in early position, and immediately got reraised by the guy to my left, him in early position too. Looked like a big hand - the classic cooler. I checked his stack- he only had 50 blinds, and I knew I wasn't folding - fuck him if he had kings or aces. I shoved my queens and he called - with Ace-Deuce suited.

That was my last hand of the night.

5 comments:

bastinptc said...

Wow. Simply wow. That last hand sucks but ush monkeys are push monkeys and Rush gives you no clue to that tendency.

Matt, what is your range for leading out? Are you playing only pairs and big suiteds? The reason I ask is the few times I have played (prolly 1K hands now), I'm doing well with AA, KK, AKs, and maybe QQ. As I've mentioned elsewhere, my really big hands have been draws, both won and lost. If there is a turn card in this largely nit fest, I'm usually up against a set or, if I flop a set, a big draw. Still, it's hard to put on the brakes when you're playing at the speed of light.

bastinptc said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bastinptc said...

Matt, not to rub it in, but today I defended my blind with 9To and turned a boat against TPTK who pushed the river. later I led out with TJs and rivered a str8 (I was given odds ;-)). Both times the players were in with big pairs, for naught. I've made more $ playing Rush than I have at regular FTP ring games.

Yes, I've been felted twice, and I know the situation can turn on a dime. Just don't get too discouraged, OK?

Forrest Gump said...

Matt, for each session do you have an allocated time you plan to play?

Sounds like you were rattled well before the 400 hand mark and maybe should have called it a night and picked up a book? My sessions can be 5 minutes or 5 hours and well into the night - depending on if i feel my mojo is workin' or not.

Tonight was 5 minutes...


FG

matt tag said...

thanks for the advice. I am playing very tight in the first three positions (77+, AK). I add KQs and some connectors in the middle positions. The last two positions I play lots and lots of hands, trying to steal blinds, or simply cbetting if someone defends.

This strategy has worked very well so far, but now that people have HUDs in Rush poker (including myself), I may have to switch it up again. I don't want to change everything based on a 500 hand sample, though - my overall rush stats are still quite good (over 4 PTBB/100).