The Dark and Deadly Spiral

I figure I will talk about some of my bad tendencies today, since one of the reared it’s ugly head last night. I like to call it the Dark and Deadly Spiral. Anyway, it went something like this.

I was looking for some good tourney play last night. I got through playing a $5 tournament, and going out about 5th. I think I played really well, but I just did not get the cards. I was getting kind of antsy down around $400, so followed a K2 suited a little too far, getting beat down to like $100, and then went out on the next hand.

Anyway, Empire poker then started having a lot of problems with there system. Not sure what was going on, but all tournaments were not working. So I take my $5 and reluctantly head for the $5 table. I decide to play my normal conservative tournament style play, and see what happens. After a while I am up to $20, and feeling pretty good. I then do something really stupid. I follow A’s down to the end, betting in every round, figuring the possible straight was just bluffing. He was not. So I loose $5. I then start the spiral. I feel like I need to win the huge amount I lost back quickly, so I start playing hands that are marginally good. Which causes me to loose more. I start feeling like I have to make it all back on the next hand. Now I am playing really poorly, going in on bad hands, following 2 cards to a straight too far, doing stupid stuff. This is the Dark and Deadly Spiral. When you take a bad beat, or start getting down, and try and make it all back in one hand. You spiral out of control, and loose it all. I was lucky last night. I calmed myself down when I got down to a few bucks, started playing only premium hands (20 points or more in Black Jack, or Suited A High or K High) caught a nice A high flush that people started betting into, and a few hours later ended up with $27, up $22 for the session. The point is: if your feeling desperate, or your changing your style after a bad beat, calm down, take a breath, and play the way you know you should.