Reader Mail: There is no tilt, Neo…

Posted by One Angry Monkey | Filed under Reader Mail

Just like Little Red Riding Hood searching for Grandma’s house, we’re off on another great adventure that is Reader Mail. In this week’s edition of the mailbag you will find no references to FTOPS (may you temporarily rest in peace), floating (in water, not poker), or the biggest question in poker today – Daniel N., is he or isn’t he (a good poker player, of course)? What you will find is the salt of the earth when it comes to this poker hustle – that’s right, we’re going back to the basics today. Hit us up at pokerfromtherail@fulltiltpoker.com with any comments, questions, or vaguely disturbing theories that make me question the true meaning of life (which is 42, of course). It’s time to get it started in here:

Is it just me, or is poker really boring if you’re playing the “correct” way? Whenever I get bored I wind up playing way too many hands. Is there anyway to avoid this trap?

Is there anyway to avoid the trap of getting bored or of playing too many hands? If you’re playing too many hands (even if it’s just because you’re bored), the easiest solution is to locate the fold button and don’t move your cursor. Keep it simple stupid and you can avoid burning your entire bankroll due to an itchy trigger finger.

Avoiding boredom is an entirely different issue. I’ll be perfectly honest here – poker is not always fun. The more serious you are about it, the less fun it seems to get. That’s because if you’re playing to make money rather than just for shits and giggles, poker can turn into a serious grind. Fold, fold, fold, raise, take down blinds, fold, fold, fold. And so on, and so on, and so on. You could very easily develop repetitive stress syndrome here.

There are a couple of ways to avoid falling into the boredom trap. My first suggestion would be to try multi-tabling. The more tables you have going at once, the more cards you’re getting dealt, the greater the possibility you’ll actually catch a hand to play on one of the tables. Problem solved. If you’re not comfortable multi-tabling, my other suggestion is this: pay close attention to every hand at the table, even when you’re not involved. If you’re serious about your poker you should be doing this anyway, but most people probably don’t. The point is to become a true student of the game – there’s so much you can learn from watching other players at your table. Treat each table like a classroom and your boredom will be alleviated. Unless you’re like me and know that school is for losers (just kidding, I love school – I’ve now been held back in 1^st Grade for 20 straight years).

I’m sure you’ve already answered this question, but what’s the best way to avoid going on tilt?

I don’t know if I’ve specifically tackled this question yet, but I seem to remember there being some mention of tilt in this space at some point. At any rate, I’m probably the last person in the world who should be answering this question. I live in a perpetual state of tilt – everything and everyone gets on my frayed nerves.

With that little caveat aside, here’s my sure fire advice for not going on tilt – just say no. So your set got cracked by a guy who hit runner-runner cards for a flush – oh well, shit happens. Tilt is nothing more than a state of mind, and you have control of your mind, right? Take your emotions out of the game before your emotions take you out of the game. Whenever you tilt, your whole bankroll is at risk. We can’t have that happen now, can we?

The point here (yes, there is a point) is to train yourself to deal with tilt before you end up punching a wall and taking that dreaded trip to the emergency room. Not that that’s ever happened to me before (cough). You simply have to learn to accept the fact that bad beats and coolers are a part of the game and, if you can’t get over that, maybe poker just isn’t for you.

Dear One Angry Monkey, why are you so angry?

It’s the caffeine, the nicotine, the milligrams of tar. It’s my habitat, it needs to be clean, it’s my car. It’s the fast talk they use to abuse and feed my brain, it’s the cat box, it needs to be changed…

My question here is whether or not this counts as fan mail? If it does, I might need to print this question out and frame the bastard, because this surely will be the only “fan mail” that I’ll ever get. All jokes and Atmosphere lyrics aside, I really don’t think that I’m that angry. Sure, I have my moments, but don’t we all? This is a pretty wacky world that we live in, with so much confusion and fear floating around out there the only logical emotion is anger.

And what does this have to do with poker? Absolutely nothing. Although thinking about poker makes me pretty angry. So does actually playing poker. And writing about it. In fact, I feel like punching a wall right about now. Man, I think I’ve got some serious issues here…

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