Nick Wealthall punishes himself by playing poker all night. It’s a hard life…
I’ve been asked many times by people who don’t play poker if I have a gambling problem. Of course, I can confidently reply that I don’t. After all, how can it be a problem if I’m making money? Fortunately, very few of them ask the more appropriate question – are you addicted to poker? That one would be trickier, especially given the title of this regular column. And while I reject claims that I’m an addict – that poker is just something I enjoy – if truth be known, I do have one small problem: stopping.
One night recently I got in from working extremely hard all day. It was about midnight on Saturday and, having left the house early in the morning, I felt robbed of my weekend. The little voice in the back of my head was already hard at work rationalising as I walked in the door. ‘Yes, you’re exhausted, and yes, you’re supposed to be writing stuff tomorrow, but it’s a Saturday night! Think of all the juicy online games that are going on at this precise moment, and hey, you deserve it.’
Two times two After a ‘long’ period of conflict and internal dilemma I logged on to my favourite site and fired up a couple of tables. I planned to play for a couple of hours just on two tables – maybe 500 hands – then straight to bed for a good night’s sleep. Relaxation took over as the stresses of the demanding world slipped away and were replaced by bright cards, diminishing time bars and the endless poker decisions. After an hour or so I was a little up with minimal drama. Then the car crash came.
I was dealt Q-Q and open- raised, only to find myself being re-raised from the small blind. Now I know this player very well and had plenty of stats and notes on him from a previous session. He was a tight player and wasn’t re-raising me without a hand. I raised again, which is pretty standard, knowing it would give him a tough decision with most of the hands he could have. He almost instantly shoved.
At this point he might as well have flipped over his cards to show me the Kings or Aces. But, for some reason, my hand drifted over the mouse and clicked the call button. Whether it was tiredness, bloody-mindedness or whatever, it was a horrible mistake. I mean, what was I doing? I had notes!!
As he showed me his Aces and I stacked off to him, it caused an almost physical reaction like a little bomb going off in my head. I was absolutely disgusted with myself. I mean, I know much better than to just call off chips like that when a player is being totally transparent about their hand. I decided that my play was completely unacceptable and I deserved to be punished. So I exited both my tables and began opening ones up a limit below where I was playing.
In the end I had between six and eight tables open and the decisions were coming thick and fast. No longer was this the relaxed end-of-day poker bubble bath; now it was an end-of-day poker war with myself. I wouldn’t describe it as tilting – I was still thinking clearly about the playing decisions – it was more ‘competitive tilt’. I was determined to make the money back, to show my superiority over these virtual monkeys and – most of all – prove to myself I could still actually play the game.
Maybe a couple of hours in to this multi-tabling madness I finally manged to get ahead for the night but I didn’t stop… actually it didn’t even occur to me to stop. Sometimes when you play poker you can slip into an almost dream-like state where you’re making decisions about the game and nothing else – it’s like meditation and I love it!
Dusk till dawn
As I sat there playing, night turned to day, my flatmate got up, had breakfast and went out, and I missed church. You could have filmed me playing and speeded up the world behind changing as I sat staring. Tack a Philip Glass soundtrack on and you’d have the latest in the Koyaanisqatsi series.
It should be noted that sessions like this are a really bad idea. Everyone will tell you it’s best to play short, focused sessions and they’re right. But it’s like being told to eat healthily, get lots of exercise and plenty of sleep – yes it’s right but it’s such a drag. In this session once I started multi-tabling I hit some hands and started winning on a few tables. ‘Playing from the front’ counteracts some of the disadvantages of playing a long session or playing tired. Having a good image at the table, especially against weaker players who will play more timidly against you, makes a big difference.
In the final analysis my ‘two-hour’ 500-hand session had spiralled into a 4,000+ hand session lasting until 10am in the morning. And I finished four buy-ins up, which is nice. But it’s vital to understand this is not an addiction – it’s just something I like to do. A lot.
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