Monster Tilt

My most common form of tilt is when I'm holding a monster hand. The adrenaline pumper kicks in and I stop thinking clearly. You might think that this form of tilt isn't very costly to my bankroll - after all, it doesn't hit until I already have a strong hand. But you would be wrong in that thinking

You can see my monster tilt in action here, when I stack-a-donked the loose luckbox with a set of tens. Once this villain called my checkraise, the adrenaline poured into my brain and I shoved the river so fast that my chips almost beat the river card to the center of the felt (I did have the wherewithal to make sure that the two flush draws bricked, that much I remember).

My tilt-induced auto-shove cost me money. The villain said something to the effect of "wow you must have something good, I fold", and flipped up 2 pair, sevens and fours, which hit on the river. Two pair isn't a bad hand, he was ahead of, say, pocket aces, and a more thoughtful and deliberate bet size (like repeating the $100 turn bet) might have gotten a call - no, should have gotten a call.

I experienced monster tilt again last night when I called a raise with ace-jack of clubs on the button, and there were three clubs on the flop. I had flopped the nut flush, mother of mercy.

My opponent lead the flop for $15 into a $23 pot, and I called. The flop was all low clubs, 8-high, so I was thinking he had an overpair, hopefully with a club to go with it. Kings would be glorious. My plan was to raise every turn card.

The turn was a 6 of spades, and my opponent stopped for a second, and then bet $30, which was a consistent size with my idea that he still had an overpair. I thought carefully and made it $80 to go, and then the monster tilt machine got turned on in my head right then. My opponent correctly surmised "so what, you actually flopped a flush?", to which I replied nothing. Then he called the big raise. Now I had to consider that he had a set at this point, but was still thinking overpair with a club, and I really wanted that club to hit on the river.

My desires were not granted - the river was a red eight, pairing the highest card on the board, and my opponent quickly and wordlessly slid the rest of his stack of chips into the middle of the table.

The warning bells were definitely going off in my head, but it was like they were muffled, under a bucket. I wasn't listening. I announced "call" without moving my chips, and he flipped over the bad news - pocket sixes.

I'll take a brief moment to whine about how well players run against me. The nut flush vs. a pair of sixes is 97.1% to win on the flop. He turns a set, so now I'm a 77% favorite, then he calls a 2.x:1 raise getting 4:1 odds, and hits the miracle runner-runner. Jesus Christ on a cracker.

But back to the hand. Bad river call, right? I mean, he's only betting $84 into a $213 pot, giving me 3.5:1 pot odds, I only have to be correct to call like 22% of the time, and I've got the nut flush. But I've got his hands narrowed down to an overpair with a club or a set, and this player wasn't donkish enough to think an overpair was still good after a giant raise on the turn.

He also never has a smaller flush here. His exact words to me were "so what, you actually flopped the flush?" - something one would never say if he had also flopped a flush. I knew he didn't have a smaller flush, I dead certain knew it. I ruled it out before he called the raise. All that leaves are boats and quad eights for him, and misery for me, but I called off the extra 42 big blinds anyway.

How impressive would it have been to fold that sucker face up? Gotta work on that monster tilt.

Fortunately for me, the "anger of losing" tilt usually doesn't cost me. Oh, I'm still steaming at the loss, but I usually just sit and stew and play my same preflop game (which is folding more than anyone else at the table). On this night, I topped up my stack with my last $60 to $110, now down $290 on the night, was immediately dealt pocket queens, and got my stack all in against a donk who thought his top pair of sevens was good. I held and doubled up, and was able to play my A game for the rest of the night.

I walked out of the casino down $62 and felt mostly good about it, able to crawl mostly back from getting stacked by a combination of runner-runner ridiculousness and my monster-tilt.